THE 



CHEISTIAI DOCTEIIE 



SLAVERY. 



GEO. D. ARMSTRONG, D.D., 

PASTOR OP THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF NORFOLK, VA. 



" Wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the doctrina 
which is according to godliness." — ^1 Tim. VI. 3. 




NEW YORK: 
CHARLES SCRIBNER, 311 & 3l9 BROADWAY. 



1857. p (/ " 2 



Enterkd according to Act of Congress, in the year KST, by 

CHARLES SCRIBNER, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. 



, TINdON, KTIKKOTYI-BK, -S:? CZNTKK «T. B. CRAlGHHAn, rUINTKE. 



P E E F A C E. 



With the hope of doing something toward bringing God's people, 
North and South, to "see eye to eye" on the much vexed question 
of Slavery, this little book has been written, and is now given to the 
public. 

Throughout, the author has kept these two ends in view : — 

1. A faithful exhibition of the doctrine respecting Slavery taught by 
Christ and his Apostles. Nothing which they taught, has been inten- 
tionally omitted. No topic which they omitted — however essential 
to a full discussion of Slavery as a civil and poUtical question, it may 
be — has been introduced. As the simplest method of exhibting the 
true meaning of the text, the author has given a paraphrase of each 
passage of Scripture particularly examined, and in connection with 
his own, the paraphrases of Whitby, McKnight, and Doddridge, ex- 
positors of established reputation both for piety and learning, that the 
reader may have at hand the means of determining whether or not he 
is putting forth novelties in the interpretation of God's Word : to- 
gether with such notes as seemed needful to illustrate and establish 
the paraphrase. 

2. An examination of the ^^ false glosses,''^ as the author thinks them^ 



IV PREFACE. 

which Dr. Barnes has put upon tJccse passages in his ^'- Notes^ Dr. 
Barnes' Notes are the only exposition of Scripture, in common circu- 
lation in our country, in which the attempt has been made, systema- 
tically, to " wrest the Scriptures " respecting Slavery ; and on this 
account, they are thus singled out for examination. Occasionally, 
quotations are made from Dr. B.'s *' Scriptural Views of Slavery," and 
his " Church and Slavery," for the purpose of showing how he him- 
self would develop the doctrine laid down in his Notes. 

"God's word is truth," and, as truth, will ere long govern the 
world. 



COE^TEI^TS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE. 

PA03 

§ 1. Preliminary Statements. — Slave-holding not in any Catalogue of Sins or 

" Offences " given us in the New Testament, T 

§ 2, These Catalogues full and minute, 9 

§ 3. New Testament written in Slave-holding States, 10 

§ 4. Nature of Slavery in Christ's day, 11 

§ 5. Often referred to by Christ and his Apostles, 13 



CHAPTER II. 
APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 

§ 6. DocLOS, .18 

§ 7. Slave-holders received and retained in the Church. — Eph. VI. 9 ; Col. 

IV. 1 ; 1 Tim. VI. 2 ; Phil. I. 2., 21 

§ 8. Case of Onesimus.— Phil. 10-19, 88 

CHAPTER III. 

APOSTOLIC PRECEPT. 

§ 9. Duties of Masters and Slaves taught as Christian Duties.— Eph. VI. 5-9 ; 

Col. III. 22-25, IV. 1 ; 1 Tim. VI. 1, 2 ; Titus II. 9, 10; 1 Pet. II. 18, 19, 50 

§ 10. The Doctrine of Christ.— 1 Tim. VI. 3, CI 

§ 11. Slavery a Matter of Little Moment.— Gal. III. 2S ; 1 Cor. XII, 13 ; Col. 

Ill, 11; 1 Cor. VII. 20,21, 05 

V 



VI CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER IV. 

APOSTOLIC INJCNCTIOK. 

PARB 

§ 12. Doctrine to be taught in the Church.— 1 Tim. TI. 4, 5 ; Titus II. 9, 10, 15, 75 

§18. "Blasphemies," 82 

§14. "Logomachies."—!. "Mere Property." 2. "A Chattel, a Thing." 8. 

" Unrequited Labor." 4. "Theft." 5. " Exclusion from the Pulpit. " 86 

CHAPTER V. 

NATCRK AND ORIGIN OF SLAVKBT. 

§ 15. Paul's Definition of Slavery. 102 

§ 16. Bible Theory of the Origin of Slavery, 110 

§ 17. Counter-arguments, 114 

CHAPTER VI. 

RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO SLAVERY. 

§ 18. The Discipline of the Church, 117 

§ 19. The Teaching of the Church, 122 

§ 20. Church and State, 124 

CONCLUSION. 
God's Work in God's Way, 181 



THE 

CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 



CHAPTEE I. 



PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE. 

§ 1. Preliminary Statements. 

"^The Church is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. Its officers are his servants, bound to exe- 
cute his wilL Its doctrines are his teachings, which 
he as a prophet lias given from God. Its discipline 
is his law, which he as a king has ordained." 

"The power of the Church accordingly, is only- 
ministerial and declarative. The Bible, and the 
Bible alone, is her rule of faith and practice. She 
can announce what it teaches ; enjoin what it com- 
mands ; prohibit what it condemns ; and enforce her 
testimonies by spiritual sanctions. Beyond the Bible 
she can never rightfully go, and apart from the Bible 

T 



y 



8 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

she can never rightfully speak. ' To the law and to 
the testimony,' and to them alone, she must always 
appeal ; and when they are silent, it is her duty to 
put her hand upon her lips." — Synod of South Caro- 
lina, 1848. 

What do Christ and his Aposties — commissioned 
by him to complete the sacred canon, and perfect the 
organization of his Church — teach respecting slavery, 
and the relation in which the Church stands to that 
institution ? 

We reply — ^They teach that slave-holding is not a 
sin in the sight of God, and is not to be accounted an 
"■offence-'' by his Church. Having a regard to the 
distinction between slavery and the incidental evils 
which may attach to it in any particular country or 
age, as fundamental to their doctrine ; and care^dly 
defining slavery itself; they direct that the Church, 
both by her teaching and her discipline, shall labor 
to remove the incidental evil ; and this in a way 
which they distinctly point out : — And, that, beyond 
this, the whole subject shall be left to be regulated 
by the State, as other civil institutions are, under the 
wholesome influence of God's providence, and his 
gospel truth faithfully exhibited by the Church. 

The evidence that this answer is according: to the 
Word of God, we now proceed to set before the 
reader. 



PKESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE. V 

Presumpt ive Evidence. 

Slave-holding does not appear in any Catalogue 
OF Sins or Disciplinable Offences given us in 
THE ]^EW Testament. 

This fact, which none will call in question, is pre- 
sumptive proof that neither Christ nor his Apostles 
regarded slave-holding as a sin or an " offence." 
That we may give to this presumption its proper 
weight, we must take account of such facts as the 
following : 

§ 2. First. — The Gcutalogues of Sins and Discip- 
linable Offences^ given us in the New Testa- 
ment., are numerous^ and i7i some instances, 
extended and minute. 

In illustration of this statement, let the reader take 
such as these : — " Being filled with all unrighteous- 
ness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, malicious- 
ness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malig- 
nity ; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despite- 
ful ; proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobe- 
dient to parents, without understanding, covenant 
breakers, without natural affection, implacable, un- 
merciful."— Eom. I. 29-31. "JN'ow the works of 

1^- 



10 THE CHKISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

the flesh are manifest, which are these ; adultery, for- 
nication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idohitry, witch- 
craft, hatred, variance, emulation, wrath, strife, sedi- 
tions, heresies, envjings, murders, drunkenness, re- 
vellings, and such like." — Gal. Y. 10-21. See also 
Matt. XY. 19; Mark. YIL 21, 22; 1 Cor. Y. 11, 
YI. 9, 10 ; Eph. Y. 5 ; Col. III. 8, 9 ; 1 Tim. I. 9, 
10 ; 2 Tim. III. 2, 3, 4 ; Eev. XXI. 8 XXII. 15. 

§ 3. Second. All the hooks of the N'ew Testament 
were written in slave- holding states^ and were 
origincdly addressed to j)ersons and churches 
in slaveholding states : One of them — the epis- 
tle to Philemon — is addressed to a slave- 
holder. 

Christ and his Apostles lived, and labored, and 
founded the Christian Church, in the midst of slave- 
holding communities. This, the Xew Testament 
itself, as well as the concurrent testimony of all his- 
tory, places beyond reasonable question. 

Slavery was expressly authorized by Moses' Law. 
'* Both thy hond-men and thy hond-maids^ which thou 
shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round 
about you ; of them shall ye buy hond-men and ho7id- 
maids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers 
that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and 



PKESDMPTIVE EVIDENCE. 11 

of tlieir families tnat are with you, which they begat 
in your land : and they shall be your possessions^'' 
(i. e.j your property.) " And ye shall take them as 
an inheritance f 07' your children after you^ to inherit 
them for a possession, they shall he your londmen for- 
everJ^ — Lev. XXY. 44-46. The number of slaves 
in Judea, in the days of Clirist and his Apostles, we 
have no means of determining with certainty. 

I?i Greece. — " When Demetrius the Phalerian was 
governor of Attica, the number of citizens in tliat 
state was 21 thousand; the number of foreigners, 10 
thousand ; and the number of slaves, 400 tliousand."— 
Potter^s Gr. Ant. I. 9. And Gibbon estimates the 
number of slaves in the Koman Empire, in the days 
of Claudius — the emperor contemporary with our 
Lord — at no less than 60 million. — Gibbori's Rome^ 
Vol. I., p. 26. 

§ 4. Third. The condition of slaves in Judea^ in our 
Lord'^s day^ was no better than it now is in our 
Southern states^ lohilst in all other countries 
it was greatly worse. 

In Judea. — " Both the food and clothing of slaves 
were of the poorest description. All their earnings 
went to their masters. The maid-servants were em- 
ployed in domestic concerns, though not unfrequently 



12 THE CHEISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

tliej were compelled to engage in those duties wliich, 
from tlieir nature, were more befitting the other sex." 

" They commonly had the consent of their masters 
to marry, or rather, to connect themselves with a 
woman in that way wliich is denominated by a Latin 
law term, contiihernium/^ The children that pto- 
ceeded from this sort of marriages, were the property 
not of the parents, but of their owners." — Jahi's 
ArchcBology^ pp. ISO, 181. 

In Borne. — " For slaves, the lash was the common 
punishment ; but for certain crimes they used to be 
branded in the forehead, and sometimes were forced 
to carry a piece of wood round their necks, wherever 
they went. "When slaves were beaten, they used to 
be suspended with a weight tied to their feet, that 
they might not move them. When punished capi- 
tally, they were commonly crucified. If a master of 
a family was slain in his own house, and the murderer 
not discovered, all his domestic slaves were liable to 
be put to death." 

" There was a continual market for slaves at Rome. 
Tlie seller was bound to promise for the soundness of 
his slaves, and not to conceal their faults. Hence 



* " Contuhernium was the matrimony of slaves, a permitted cohabi- 
tation ; not partaking of lawful marriage, which they could not con- 
tract." — Cooper's Justinian^ p. 420. 



PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE. 13 

they were commonly exposed to sale naked; and 
tliey carried a scroll hanging at their necks, on which 
their good and bad qualities were specified." — 
Adaim^s Rom. Ant.^ pp. 48, 51. 

In Greece. — "The condition of slaves in Greece 
appears to have been much the same as at Rome." — 
Potter's Gr. Ant, I. 10.^ 

§ 5. Fourth. Slavery, and the relations which it 
establishes are freciiiently sjpoken of, and yet 
more frequently referred to hy Christ and his 
Apostles. 

The passages in which they expressly treat of 
slavery will be examined hereafter. As instances of 
the incidental reference to it, on the part of Christ, 

* As Rome, in our Lord's day, had extended her dominion over 
the then known workl, her law was the supreme law in every country 
in which the Apostles preached and planted a Christian chlirch. 
Under the Roman civil law, "slaves were held j!??'o nullis : pro mor- 
tuis : pro quadrupedibus ; nay, were in a much worse state than any 
cattle whatsoever. They had no head in the state, no name, title, or 
register ; they were not capable of being injured : nor could they 
take by purchase or descent ; they had no heirs, and therefore could 
make no will ; they were not entitled to the rights and considerations 
of matrimony, and therefore had no relief in case of adultery : nor 
were they proper objects of cognation or affinity, but of quasi-cogna- 
tion only ; they could be sold, transferred, or pawned, as goods or 



14 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

we may cite — Luke XVII. 7-10, the parable of the 
improfitable servant {doulos, see § G) ; Luke !^X. 
9-18, the parable of the wicked husbandmen, who 
maltreat, first their lord's servant {doulos) and then 
his sou ; Jno. VIII. 31:, 35, " Whosoever committeth 
gill, is the servant of sin, and the servant {doulos) 
abideth not in the house for ever, but the son abideth 
ever ;''" Jno. XV. 15, '' Henceforth I call you not 
i^crvaiits, for the servant {doulos) knoweth not what 
his lord doeth, but I have called you friends." 

Evident reference to slavery on the part of the 
Apostles we have in 1 Cor. VL 20, VIL 22. '' St. 
Paul, in reference to the custom of purchasing slaves, 
on whose head a price was then fixed, just as upon 
any other commodity, and who, when bought, were 

personal estate, for goods they were, and as such they were esteemed ; 
they might be tortured for evidence, punished at the discretion of 
tlieir lord, and even put to death by his authority ; together with 
many'other civil incapacities which I have not room to enumerate." — 
Taylor's Elm. of Civil Law, quoted in Cooper's Justinian, p. 411. 

* "Here we have an illustration drawn from what is usual in com- 
mon life. The slave has no claim to remain continually in the same 
family ; but may, at the pleasure of his owner, be sold unto another. 
Not so the son; he cannot be alienated from the family. Thus it is 
with the servants of sin, who may, at any time, be excluded from 
God's house and favor, into outer darkness : whereas, those who have 
the liberty of sons of God will abide in it for ever." — Bloowf eld's 
N. T. 



PRESUMPTIVE EVIDENCE. 15 

tile property of the pnrcliaser, by a very beautiful 
and ex23i'essive similitude, represents Christians as 
the servants (douloi) of Christ. And in Gal. YI. 17, 
alluding to the signatures with which slaves in those 
days were branded, writes : — '' From henceforth let no 
man trouble me, for I bear in my body the metrics 
of the Lord Jesus.' " — Ilovneh Introduction. With 
the Apostles the word servant [douloi) is a favorite 
word for setting forth the relation Vvhich they sus- 
tained to Christ, as persons entirely and for life 
devoted to his service, and bound to implicit obedi- 
ence.' (See Rom. I. 1 ; 2 Pet. I. 1 ; Jude, 1.) 

But the most significant allusion to slavery — signi- 
ficant in so far as the point now under examination is 
concerned — is that contained in 1 Tim. I. 9, 10 : — 
'' Knowing this, tliat the law is not made for a 
" righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, 
" for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and 
" 2:)rofane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of 
" mothers, for man-slayers, for whoremongers, , for 
" them that defile themselves with mankind, for men- 
" STEALERS (cindrcijoodistais)^ for liars, for perjured 
" persons, and if there be any other thing that is con- 
" trary to sound doctrine." 

On the word andrajwdistcds Bloomfield remarks : 
" Expositors are agreed that the Vv^ord means kidnap- 
ping free persons to be sold as slaves, a crime uni- 



16 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

versally regarded as of the deepest dye, and always 
punished with death." — BloonifielcVs iV. T. And in 
the countries adjacent to that in which Timothy was 
when Paul wrote this epistle to him we have express 
testimony that kidnapping prevailed. ^^ 

The distinction between slave-holding and kid- 
napping is one always made, in so far as we know, in 
the laws of slave-holding states. Under Moses' law 
slave-holding was expressly authorized, (Lev. XXY. 
44-J:G, quoted in § 3,) whilst kidnapping was made a 
capital crime. " And he that stealeth a man and 
selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, (i. e. 
' though he had not actually sold him ' — Bj). Patrick^ 
he shall surely be put to death." — Ex. XXL 16. 
See also Deut. XXIY. 7. Timothy, who " from a 
child had known the Holy Scriptures," — the Old 
Testament Scriptures, of course, for the New Testa- 
ment was not written in Timothy's childhood — must 
have been familiar with this distinction ; and when 
Paul writes to him, and, in giving a catalogue of 
sins to be condemned, mentions " man-stealing " 
among crimes of the deepest dye, whilst in the same 

* "The Thessalians, according to Aristophanes, were notorious for 
stealing persons of ingenuous birth and education, and selling them 
as slaves. But if any person was convicted of having betrayed a 
freeman, he was severely punished by Solon's laws." — Potter's Gr. 
Ant. 1. 10. 



PRESUMPTIVE EVroENCE. 17 

epistle lie requires him to teach slaves to obey their 
masters, and this the more heartily when the masters 
are Christian men, and to withdraw himself from 
any who should teach a different doctrine, (see 
1 Tim. YI. 1-5,) the idea would be suggested inevit- 
ably that the distinction made in Moses' law con- 
tinued under the Gospel dispensation. 



CHAPTER 11. 

APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 

"Brethren, be followers together of me, and 
" mark them which walk so as jou have us for an 
" example."— Phil. III. IT. 

§ 6. DouLos. 

There are several Greek words used by the sacred 
writers which, in our English version of the IsTew 
Testament, are alike translated servant. One of 
them, the word Doulos, it will be necessary to 
examine, as preparatory to an intelligent decision of 
the question. What do Christ and his Apostles 
teach respecting slavery ? 

" Doulos — A 'bondman^ slave, servant, pr. by birth. 
In a family, the clotdos was one bound to serve — a 
slave — and was the property of his master, ' a living 
possession,' as Aristotle calls him. The doulos, there- 
fore, was never a hired servant, the latter being 

18 



APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 19 

called misthios and Qnisthotos^ q. v. See Potter's 
Gr. Ant. Adam's Eom. Ant., Dictionary of Ant., 
art. servus^ — BohinsoTi's iT. T. Lexicon. 

" Doulos^ from deo^ to bind, means a hondman or 
slave^ as distinguished from a /wV<?c^ servant, who was 
called misthios and misthotosy — Hodge on Eph. 
VI. 5. And Dr. Hodge adds : — " It is evident, 
both from the meaning of the terms here used and 
from the known historical fact that slavery prevailed 
throughout the Roman empire during the apostolic 
age, that this (i. e. Eph. YI. 5-9) and other passages 
of the New Testament refer to that institution." 

" The word doidos, contracted for deolos, was pro- 
perly an adjective, signifying hound; but, used 
substantively, denotes a 'bond-servant^ usually for 
liiQ^—Bloomfield's iT. T., Eom. I. 1. 

For the distinction between the word doulos and 
several other words, also translated servant in our 
English version, the reader can consult " Trench'' s 
Synonyms of the New Testament.^'' His definition of 
doulos is " one in a permanent relation of servitude 
to another. ^'^ 

Dr. Barnes is one among the few writers who have 
called this definition of djoulos in question ; with how 
little reason an examination of his own authority will 
show. The case, as stated by himself in his " ITotes," 
is : — " The word {doulos) is that which is commonly 



20 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

applied to a slave^ but it is so extensive in its signifi- 
cation as to be applicable to any species of servitude, 
whether voluntary or involuntary. There is nothing 
in the word itself which essentially limits it to 
slavery. Examine Matt. XIII. 27, XX. 27 ; Mark, 
X. 41; Luke, II. 29; Jno. XY. 15; Acts, II. 18, 
lY. 29, XYI. 17 ; Rom. 1. 1 ; 2 Cor. lY. 5 ; Jude, 1 ; 
Eev. I. 1, II. 20, YII. zy— Barnes' mtes, 1 Tim. 
VI. 1. 

Of these fourteen instances thus quoted by Barnes, 
six— viz.. Acts, lY. 29, XYI. 17; Eom. 1. 1 ; 2 Cor. 
lY. 5 ; Jude, 1 ; Rev. 1. 1 — are instances in which it 
is used figuratively, and applied to the Apostles, 
either by themselves or others, for the purpose of 
setting forth the fact that they were entirely and for 
life devoted to God's service, (see § 5,) and the chief 
beauty of the figure is destroyed if we give the word 
doulos any other than what Dr. B. admits to be its 
''common" meanins:. Four are instances in which 
it is applied in the same way to God's people — viz., 
Luke, IL 29 ; Acts, IL 18 ; Rev. II. 20, YII. 3. 
Matt. XIII. 27, in the parable of the tares, the mean- 
ing of the word doulos is positively determined to be 
slave ^ by the use of the corresponding term despotas 
in the same sentence. For Jno. XY. 15, see § 5. 
On Matt. XX. 27 : — •" But whosoever will be great 
among you, let him be your minister {diakonos) ; 



APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. . 21 

and whosoever will be chief among yon, let liim be 
joiir servant" {doulos). — And Mark, X. 4-i, is the 
'parallel record of the same words. — Bloomlield 
remarks : — " Dlakonos — doulos. There is properly a 
difference between these terms ; the former si^nifv- 
ing a servant like owy footman or valet^ and nsiially a 
freeman ; the latter, a servant for all work, and also a 
slaved For an illustration of this difference in the 
meaning of the two words, as beautifully illustrated 
in the parable of the marriage-supper, the reader can 
consult " Treiicli's Syn. of iY. Z" All these in- 
stances cited by Dr. Barnes, when examined, instead 
of setting aside, do but establish the meaning assigned 
to the word doulos by all our lexicographers and 
commentators of reputation. 



§ 1. II. The Apostles Received Slave-Holdeks into 

THE ChpJSTIAN ChURCH, AND CONTINUED THEM 
THEREIN, W^ITHOUT GIVING ANT INTIMATION EITHER 
AT THE TIME OF THEIR RECEPTION, OR AFTER- 
WARDS, THAT Slave-Holding was a Sin before 
God, or to be accounted an offence by the 
Church. 

Proof.— J5?A. VL 9, Col. IV. 1, 1 Tim. VI. 2, 
Philemon I. 2. 



1 



22 THE CHKISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 



Epii. YI. 9. 

" And ye inastors, do the same things unto them, 
" forbearing threatening ; knowing that yom- master 
' " also is in heaven ; neither is there respect of persons 
" with him." 

Paraphrase. — And ye masters^ who are saints and 
faithful in Christ Jesus ^ (') {See I. 1.,) treat your 
slaves {douloi^ Y. 5) in the same Christian spirit in 
which I have enjoined it upon them that they treat 
you, forbearing threatening : knowing that your mas- 
ter also is in heaven ; neither is there respect of per- 
son* with him.* 
•» 

]^0TEs.(') — Masters who are saints and faithful in 
Christ Jesus. The titles, Agioi, saints, and Pistoi^ 
faithfuls or believers, are the titles by which the mem- 
bers of the Christian Church were commonly desig- 
nated in the Apostle's days. The name Christian, so 
generally used in later times, had not then become a 
common designation : it is used but three times in the 
New Testament. Some of the epistles are addressed 

* To avoid distracting the reader's attention, we shall give a para- 
phrase of the passages of Scripture quoted in proof, in so far only as 
they bear upon the point under examination at the time they are 
quoted. 



APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 23 

to ^' the chiiTclies^'' e. g. Gal. and 1 and 2 Thess. ; 
others to '^ the saints ^^^ ov 'Hhe saints and faithful^ 
or lelievers^^ e. g. Eom. 1 and 2 Cor., and this 
epistle to the Ephesians. The propriety of the para- 
phrase will appear, (1) From the address of the 
epistle : — " Paul, an Apostle of Jesus Christ, by the 
will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and 
to the faithful in Christ Jesus^'' I. 1 — (2) Erom the 
motive with whicli Paul enforces obedience to his 
injunction: — "knowing that ye also have a master in 
heaven ; neither is there respect of persons with him :" 
a motive w^hich might be urged wdth. great effect in 
addressing a Christian master ; but whicli it would be 
folly to present to a heathen. 

Col. IY. 1. 

" Masters, give unto your servants that whicli is 
"just and equal, knowing that ye also have a master 
" in heaven." 

Paraphrase. — Ye masters (who are saints and 
faithful brethren in Christ at Colosse, I. 2), give unto 
your slaves {douloi) that which is just and equal; 
knowing that ye also have a master in heaven. 

1. Tim. YI. 2. 

. "And they that have believing masters, let them' 



24 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

" not despise them, because tliey are brethren ; but 
" rather do them service, because they are faithful and 
" beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach 
" and exliort." 

Paraphrase. — And they (i. e. such slaves, douloi^ 
V. 1) tliat have believing {pistons) masters, let them 
not despise them, because they are tlieir hrethren (') 
{adeljyhoi) in Christ, but the rather do them service, 
because they who are partakers in the benefits of their 
labor, are faithful {pistoi) and heloved Q) {agapatoi) 
of God. These things teach in the Church, and 
exliort Christian slaves to observe them, as " whole- 
some words, even the words of the Lord Jesus Christ," 
V. 3.* 

IToTEs.(') — "The titles, hrethren, saints, elect, he- 
loved, sons of God, etc., have ever been applied as 

* " And they that have believing masters, let them not despise 
them, because they are advanced to be brethren, and so, equal to 
them in Christ ; but rather, let them do them service, because they 
are faithful (i. e., of the household of faith) and beloved of God, par- 
takers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort." — Wldthy. 

" And those Christian slaves who have beUeving masters, let thera 
not despise them, fancying that they are their equals, because they 
are their brethren in Christ ; for though all Christians are equal as to 
religious privileges, slaves are inferior to their masters in station. 
Wherefore, let them serve their masters more diligently, because they 



APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 25 

the special prerogative of believers, or professing 
Christians." — Cole7na7i's Ancient Christianity^ p. 110. 

Philemon, I. 2. 

" Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our 
"brother, unto Philemon, our dearly beloved and 
" fellow-laborer ; and to our beloved Apphia, and 
" Archippus our fellow-soldier, and to the Church in 
" thy house." 

Paraphrase. — Paul, a prisoner for the cause of 
Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother, unto our 
dearly beloved Philemon, ou7' fellow-minister {simer- 
gos) m the Church; (') and to our beloved Apphia, 
and Archippus our fellow-soldier, and to the Church 

who enjoy the benefit of their service, are believers, and beloved of 
God. These things teach ; and exhort the brethren to practise 
them." — McKnight. 

" And as for those servants who are so happy as to have believing 
masters, let them not presume upon that account to despise them 
because they ai'e brethren, and with respect to sacred privileges 
equal in Christ their conimon Lord ; but let them rather serve them 
with so much the greater care, tenderness, and respect, because they 
are faithful and beloved, and partakers with them of the great and 
glorious benefit which the Gospel brings to all its faithful professors, 
of whatever rank or profession in life. These things which I have 
been mentioning, take care, Timothy, to teach and exhort thine 
hearers always to maintain a due regard to them." — Doddridge. 

2 



26 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY." 

which statedly assembles for GotVs worship in thy 
house. (^) * 

KoTES-O — Our fellow-minister {swiergos) in the 
Church. '•'' Smiergos. A co-worker, fellow-laborer, 
helper. In IST. T. spoken only of a co-worker, helper 
in the Christian work, i. e. of Christian teachers." — 
JRoMnso7i''s JS^. T. Lexicon. " Literally, helper, (in 
the cause of the Gospel,) whether as a Deacon, or 
Preacher to the congregation assembling in his house, 
is uncertain." — BloomfieWs N. T. "Archippus, 

* " Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Clirist, and Timothy our brother, write 
unto Philemon, our dearly beloved and fellow-laborer; and to our 
beloved Apphia, and to Archippus our fellow-soldier, and to the 
church in thy house."— IFAi^iy, 

"Paul, confined with a chain for preaching Christ Jesus to the 
Gentiles, and Timothy, our lirothcr-ministcr, to Philemon the beloved 
of us both, and our fellow-laborer in the Gospel, and to Apphia, the 
beloved of all who know her, and to Archippus our fellow-soldier, and 
to that part of Jhe Church at Colosse which is in thy h^use." — 
McKnight. 

"Paul, a well-known prisoner in the cause of Christ Jesus, and Tim- 
othy, a brother, not unknown, join in their salutations to Philemon 
our beloved friend, and pious fellow-laborer in the work of the Gos- 
pel of our blessed Redecmor, and one of the Pastors of the Colossian 
Church ; and we also address thorn to Apphia, his pious consort, 
and to his associate in the ministry, Archippus, our fellow-soldier in 
that holy warfare in which we are engaged ; and the little church of 
Christians tliat is in thine liouse.*' — Doddridge. 



APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 27 

appears from Col. lY. IT, to have been a Pastor of 
the Church of Colosse. The title of fellow-laborer, 
given Philemon, makes it probable that he was his 
colleague in the ministry. He seems from several 
hints given in the Epistle, to have been a person of 
distinction : particularly from the mention made of 
the Church in his house, (ver. 2,) and his liberal con- 
tribution to the relief of the saints, (ver. 5, T ;) and 
the general strain of the letter shows, that the Apostle 
held him in very high esteem, and looked upon him 
as one of the great supports of religion in that 
society." — Doddridge^ Int. to Phil. 

(") — The Ckurch which statedly assemhlesfor God's 
wo/'shij? in thy house. On a similar phrase in Rom. 
XYI. 5, Dr. Hodge remarks : — " These words, ' the 
church that is in their house^ are understood by 
many of the Greek and modern commentators, to 
mean their Christian faraily / so Calvin, Flatt, 
Koppe, Tholuck, &c. The most common and natu- 
ral interpretation is, ' the church which is accustomed 
to assemble in their house.' " — Hodge on Bomans. 



Remabks. 

First. — In these several passages w^e find an 
inspired Apostle, giving to slave-holders the titles, 
" Saints^ Faithfid in Christ Jesus, Believers, Breth- 



28 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRIXE OF SLAVERY. 

ren^ Beloved, Dearly Beloved^^ call the titles by which 
members of the Church were commonly designated in 
the Apostles' day ; and enjoining npon them their 
duties as masters by Christian motives — motives 
which it would have been folly to have addressed to 
heathen men. And in the case of Philemon, addres- 
sing a slave-holder as a Deacon or Pastor in the 
Christian Church, and along with his salutation to 
him, sending like salvation " to the Church in his 
house." 

Could we have clearer evidence than this that the 
Apostles received slave-holders into the Church, and 
continued them therein, seeing in their slave-holding 
nothing inconsistent with " having a good conscience 
before God" and " good standing" in the Church ? 

Second. In his Xotcs on 1 Tim. VI. 2, Dr. Barnes 
writes : — " Nor is it foirly to be inferred from this 
passage that he (Paul) meant to teach that they 
(masters) might continue this (i. e. slave-holding) and 
yet be entitled to all tlie respect and confidence due 
to the Christian name, or be regarded as maintaining 
a good standing in the Church. Whatever may be 
true on these points, the passage before us only 
proves that Paul considered that a man who was a 
slave-holder might be converted, and be sj)oken of as 
a ' believer,' or a Christian. Many have been con- 
verted in similar circumstances, as many have in the 



APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 29 

practice of all other kinds of iniquity. What was 
their duty after their conversion was another ques- 
tion." And in the summary of the truth taught in 
the whole passage, (ver. 1-5,) he adds : — " It does 
not teach that a man can be a Christian and continue 
to hold others in bondage, whatever may be true on 
that point. It does not teach that he ought to be 
considered as maintaining a 'good standing' in the 
Church if he continues to be a slave-holder." The 
italics in these quotations are Dr. B.'s own. 

The insinuation, or rather the clear implication 
contained in these paragraphs is that the " believing 
masters," here spoken of, were slave-holders only at 
the time of their conversion, and were required to 
free their slaves before they could be permitted " to 
maintain a good standing in the Church." 

What are the facts in this case, and those of the 
passages similar in import in the epistles to the Ephe- 
sians, Colossians, and to Philemon, Dr. Barnes hijpa- 
self being our witness-in-chief? 

1. Ill the case of 1 Tim. VI. 2. — Paul founds a 
church at Ephesus, a.d. 55, (see Barnes' Int. to 1 Tim.,) 
and that " the full power of the Gospel should be tried 
there," ^ that this may be a model Church, he spends 

* " The Apostle, therefore, seems to liave been anxious that tlie 
full power of the Gospel should be tried there, and that Ephosus 



?>0 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

tliree wliole years with it, " teaching publicly and 
from house to house, keeping back nothing that was 
profitable to them" (Acts, XX. 20). At the end of 
this time he is driven away from Ephesus. but leaves 
Timothy, who " as a son with the father, has served 
with him in the Gospel," (Phil. II. 22), in charge. 
Shortly after this, (a.d. 68 or 59 — Barnes,) he writes 
his First Epistle to Timothy, yet laboring in Ephesus. 

Three years then, at the least, after this model 
Church is founded by Paul, there are slave-holders in 
it, and this fact, is well known to Paul, and in writing 
to Timothy, their pastor, Paul speaks of them as 
" helievers, hrethren^ faithful^ and helomdP And so 
far is he from intimating that they ought to be 
excluded from the Chnrch, or that they were not 
" entitled to all the respect and confidence due to the 
Christian name," he requires Timothy to teach their 
slaves, also members of the same Church, that they 
se^'ve them (i. e. their " believing masters") the more 
faithfully, and treat them with the more respect, 
because they are their '' brethren — ^beloved of God." 

2. In the case of Eph. VI. 9. — From four to seven 
years after, Paul wrote his First Epistle to Timothy, 



sliould become as important as a centre of influence in the Christian 
world as it had been in paganism and civil affairs." — Barnes^ Int. to 
Epheaians. 



APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 31 

he writes an epistle to tlie Churcli at Ephesus, writes 
it during his second imj^risonment at Rome, and 
shortly before his martyrdom. (See Barnes' Int. to 
Eph.) Slave-holders are still in this model Church, 
and Paul is cognizant of this fact. But instead of 
intimating that they ought not to '' be regarded as 
maintaining a good standing in the Church," he 
specially addresses masters and slaves, as classes of 
Church members, along with husbands and wives, 
parents and children, giving them the titles '' Saints 
and Faithful in Christ Jesus," and repeats to Christ- 
ian slaves the same direction, in substance, resj^ecting 
their conduct which he had before given by Timothy. 

3. Ill the case of Col. IV. 1. — Paul, in conjunction 
with Silas and Timothy, found a Church at Colosse, 
A.D. 52, 53. Some ten to thirteen years afterwards, 
he writes an epistle to this Church. (See Barnes' Int. 
to Col.) In this epistle he addresses slave-holders as 
" saints and faithful brethren in Christ," and carefully 
prescribes the relative duties of masters and slaves as 
Christian men, and enforces these his directions by 
Christian motives; but says not one word about 
emancipation. 

4. Ii the case of Phil. I. 2. — At the same time at 
which Paul writes his epistle to the Church at Colosse, 
and by the same person, (see Barnes' Int. to Col.,) he 
addresses an epistle to Philemon, his " dearly be- 



32 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTJRINE OF SLAVERY. 

loved sunergos^^ ('' deacon or preacliei*- ' — Bloomfield^ 
" one of the pastors of the chnrch at Colosse" — Dod- 
dridge)^ sendhig back to him Onesimus, a slave, who 
had some time before run away from him, and who, 
whilst a fugitive in Home, had been hopefully con- 
verted through Paul's instrumentality. If we admit, 
as Dr. B. contends, that Onesimus was sent back in 
accordance with his own desire, and even that Paul 
did reguest his master to grant him his freedom, it 
will not affect the case, in so far as the point now 
under examination is concerned. It is clear, then, 
that ten years, at the least, after the Church at 
Colosse w^as founded by Paul it had slave-holders, 
not as worthy members only, but a slave-holding 
deacon or pastor also, one of Paul's own converts 
(ver. 19), and one of such standing in the Church 
that a part of that Church was accustomed to meet 
for divine worship in his house. Paul knows all this, 
and he writes to this Philemon an epistle of wdiich 
slave-holding furnishes the occasion, not only without 
any intimation that his slave-holding was inconsistent 
with his "good standing" in the Church, but he 
writes in terms which, as an honest man, he could 
not have used had he thought Pliilemon an unworth}^ 
office-bearer in the Church. 

Is all this reconcilable with the idea that a slave- 
holder, though " ho might be converted — as many 



APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 33 

have been in the practice of all other kinds of ini- 
quity — yet conlcl not maintain a good standing " in 
the Christian Church in the Aj^ostles' day ? 



§ 8. Paul sent back a Fugitive Slave, aftek the 
Slave's hopeful Conversion, to his Christian 
Master again, and assigns as his reason for 

so DOING THAT MaSTEr's RIGHT TO THE SERVICES 

OF HIS Slave. 

Proof. — Philemon, 10-19. 

"I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I 
" have begotten in my bonds ; which in times past 
" was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee 
" and to me ; whom I have sent again ; thou there- 
" fore receive him, that is mine own bowels : whom I 
" would have retained with me, that in thy stead he 
" might have ministered unto me in the bonds of the 
'' Gospel. But without thy mind would I do nothing, 
" that thy benefit should not be as it were of neces- 
" sity, but willingly. For perhaps he therefore 
" departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive 
" him for ever ; not now as a servant, but above a 
'' seivant, a brother beloved, especially to me, but 
" how much more unto thee both in the flesh and in 

2- 



34: THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

" tlie Lord ? If tlioii count me therefore a partner, 
" receive him as myself. If he hath wronged thee, 
" or oweth thee aught, put that on mine account ; I, 
" Paul, have written it with mine own hand, I will 
" repay it ; albeit, I do not say to thee how thou 
" owest unto me even thine own self besides." 



Paraphrase." — I Paul, beseech thee (Philemon) for 
my son in the faith, Onesimus, whom I have begotten 
in my bonds. In time past, though called Onesimus, 
{profitable ^) he has been an unprofitable slave to 
thee ; but now that he has been truly converted, as I 
believe, I have confidence in him, that he will en- 
deavor to serve thee '' not with eye service, but in 
singleness of heart," (Eph. YI. 5, 6,) doing it "heart- 
ily," (Col. in. 23,) as lie hath served me since his con- 
version.{^) As his sj^iritual father and instructor in 
Christian duty^ I have sent him hach to thee ; (^) and 
I entreat thee to receive him as one that is mine own 
bowels. Had I regarded mine own wishes, and not 
thy rights, I would have kept him with me, that in 
thy stead he might have rendered me that service in 
mine imprisonment which I know thou wouldst most 
cheerfully have done hadst thou been in Pome. But 
that I might not even seem to compel thee, even where 
I had a right to expect assistance from thee, 1 would 
do nothing of the kind loithout thine expi^ess consent.(^) 



APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 35 

Who shall say but that, in God's providence, Onesi- 
mns escaped from thee for a season, that thou 
shouldst have him again for Ufe.i^) Eeceive him 
back into thy family again, I beseech thee, not as a 
fugitive slave {do2dos),Q) to be regarded with suspi- 
cion and treated with severity ; but, even, as one 
better than an ordinary slave, {doulos,) a brother, 
especially dear to me, and, I doubt not, to become 
even more dear to thee, as a member of thy family, 
and of the Church worshipping in thy house. If thou 
count me therefore a partner, receive him as myself. 
If, taking into account his former unprofitableness to 
thee, along with his diligent and willing service for 
the future, thou yet thinkest that he hath wronged 
thee in running away^i^) or in any way he hath be- 
come indebted to thee, put that to my account. I 
Paul have written this with mine own hand, I will 
repay it : not to say to thee, that as God made me 
the instrument in thine own conversion, thou owest 
thine own self to me.* 

* " I beseech thee for ray son Onesimus, whom I have begotten — 
i. e. converted to the faith — when I was in my bonds : which in time 
past was to thee an unprofitable servant, but now, if received, will be 
profitable to thee, and if sent back, to me : Whom I have sent again 
unto thee, he being in duty thine, and not to be employed by others, 
or detained without thy leave. Thou therefore receive him— him, I 
sav — that is, mine own bowels, he being as dear to me as if he had 



00 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

JSToTES-C) — As he hath served me since his conversion. 
This is McKiiiglit's paraphrase of ''profitable to — 
me," and is tlie only sense which we can assign to 

proceeded from mine own bowels : wliom I would willingly have 
retained with me, that in thy stead he might have ministered unto 
me being in the bonds of the Gospel. But without thy mind would 

1 do nothing of this nature ; that thy benefit (or the advantage I 
received from him who is thy servant) should not be, on thy part, as 
it were a matter of necessity, because thou couldst not have him 
returned to |hee, but willingly, by thine own grant. For perhaps he 
therefore departed from thee for a season, that thou shouldst receive 
him for ever — i. e., to serve thee for life. That thou shouldst receive 
him, I say, not now as a servant only, but above a servant, as being 
also in Christ a brother beloved, specially (or, particularly) to me, but 
how much more unto thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord, i. e., as 
being of thy family and of ihy foith. If thou count me therefore a 
partner in thy friendship, receive him as myself. If he have wronged 
thee in anything, or oweth thee aught, put that on mine account : I 
Paul have written it with mine own hand, and so have entered into 
a solemn obligation that I will repay it : albeit I do not say to thee, 
i. e., insist upon it, how thou owest unto me, by whom thou wast 
converted, even thine own self, or the well-being of thy soul, be- 
sides." — Whitby. 

" By all these considerations I beseech thee for my son, whom I 
begat iu my bonds, and who on that account is very dear to me, even 
Onesimus, whom I acknowledge, formerly was to thee an unprofit- 
able slave, but now' having embraced the Gospel, he will, by his faith 
ful, affectionate services, be very profitable to thee, even as he has 
been to me since his conversion. Him I have sent back to thee by 
his own desire. Do thou therefore receive him into thy family ; that 
is to say, receive one who is mine own bowels, my son, a part of me. 



APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 37 

the expression, without giving to the same word dif- 
ferent senses, as it stands connected with different 
parts of the same sentence : " to thee," and '^ to me." 



Being so useful to me, I wish to detain him with myself, that, in thy 
stead, he might have performed those offices to me in these bonds of 
the Gospel, which thou thyself wouldst have performed if thou hadst 
been at Rome. But, whatever title I had to his services, on account 
of what thou owest to me as an Apostle of Christ suflFering for he 
Gospel, without knowing thy mind, whose slave he is, I would do 
nothing to encourage him to stay with me ; that thy good deed in 
pardoning him might not be as extorted, but as proceeding from thine 
own good will. To mitigate thy resentment, consider, that perhaps 
also for this reason he was separated from thee for a little while, that 
thou mightest have him thy slave for life ; no longer as a slave only 
but above a slave ; even a beloved Christian brother ; especially to 
m^e who know his worth, and have been indebted to him for his 
services. How much more to thee, as a brother, both by nation and 
by religion, who will serve thee with more understanding, fidelity, 
and affection, than before? If thou then hold me as a partaker of 
thy affection, give him the same reception which thou wouldst give 
to myself. And if he hath injured thee anything by running away, 
or oweth thee in the way of borrowing, place it all to my account. 
And to entitle thee to payment, I Paul have written it with mine 
own hand, I will repay thee all. This I have done, that in urging 
thee to pardon Onesimus I may not say to thee, thou owest me even 
thine own self besides." — McKnight. 

"I entreat thee concerning a certain son of mine, whom I have 
begotten to Christ in my bonds ; and whom I hope thou wilt, upon 
that account, be inclined to favor, knowing how dear he must be to 
me, considered as a soul which God hath given me at such a sea- 



38 THE CHRISTIAIi DOCTKENE OF SLAVERY. 

(') — As his spiritual father^ and instructor in 
Christian duty^ I have sent him hack to thee. Of the 
word anapempo, here rendered " sent again," Robin-" 

son as this. And it is no other than thy servant Onesimus ; who 
indeed, if I may so allude to his name, did not formerly answer to 
it," (Onesimus, signifies profit. — Note.) " for he was once unprofitable 
to thee, negligent of thy business, and so conscious of thy displeasure 
that he fled from it. But he now is, and I trust will be, profitable 
both to thee and to me, so as daily to give increasing satisfaction to 
us both : whom, how agreeable and useful soever he might have been 
to me here, I have sent back to thee again : do thou therefore receive 
him with readiness and affection. Receive him did I say ? nay rather 
receive, as it were, my own bowels ; a person whom I so tenderly 
love, that he may seem, as it were, to carry the heart of Paul along 
with him wherever he goes. Whom indeed I was desirous to have 
kept neir me, that he might have officiated for thee, and in thy stead 
attended upon me in the bonds I suffer for the sake of the Gospel : 
for I do thee, Philemon, the justice to believe, thou wouldst have 
found a pious pleasure in every ministration of this kind, if thou wert 
near me. But I would do nothing in this affair without thy express 
consent, that thy benefit might not seem extorted by necessity, but 
appear a voluntary act. I therefore return him to thee by the first 
opportunity ; for perhaps he was separated from thee for a while, by 
the permission of Providence to this very end, that thou mightest 
receive him and enjoy him for ever ; that he might not only be dear 
and useful to thee, during all the remainder of his life, as a servant, 
whose ear, is as it were, bored to the door of thine house, (to allude 
to the Hebrew custom, Ex. XXI. 6,) but that he might indeed be a 
source of eternal delight to thee, in that infinitely better world, 
where all distinctions between masters and their slaves shall cea&e, 



APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 39 

son gives this definition : '•'1. To send up before a 
higlier tribunal, to remit. — Luke XXIII. 7, 15. 2. 
To send lack again. — Luke XXIII. 11 ; I*liilemon 
11." " As soon as he (Pilate) knew that he (Jesus) 
belonged to Herod's jurisdiction, he sent him to 
Herod. For I (Pilate) sent you to him (Herod) ; and 
lo, nothing worthy of death is done unto him."— 



even that world of complete liberty and everlasting friendship. In 
the mean time, receive him not now as a fugitive slave, to be long 
frowned upon, and kept at a distance, for his former faults ; nor treat 
him merely as a common servant, but as above a servant, as standing 
in another, a much more dear and honorable relation, a beloved 
brother, especially to me, as having been for some time a very use- 
ful attendant upon me in my afflictions ; but how much more so to 
thee, to whom he belongs both in the flesh and in the Lord, as thou 
hast so long known him, and wilt have the pleasure of discerning 
more particularly how happy a change Christianity hath made in his 
temper and character ? If therefore, thou esteem me as a friend and 
a companion in Christ, I beseech thee to receive him as thou wouldst 
myself, if I could have the satisfaction of making thee a visit in per 
son. If he have injured thee in any pecuniary matter, or is indebted 
to thee in consequence of any former extravagances and foUies, (of 
which divine grace hath, now, I hope, made him truly sensible,) as 
far as it has been the case, charge it to my account. I Paul have 
written it with my own hand, and do hereby, as it were, give thee 
legal security for it. I will pay it again upon demand, as far as my 
little substance will go. Not to say to thee thus, as I was the happy 
instrument of thy conversion to Christ, thou owest even thine own 
self to me." — Doddridge. 



40 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

Luke XXIII. 7, 15. " And (Herod) sent him (Jesus) 
again to Pilate."— Luke XXIII. 11. New Testa- 
ment usage, then, requires us to understand Paul, 
when he sajs, " I have sent again," to mean, that he 
had used some authority in returning Onesimus to 
his master. And as an Apostle indignantly repels the 
idea of acting '' as a Lord in God's heritage," the 
only consistent interpretation of the expression is that 
presented in the paraphrase, " As his spiritual father 
and instructor in Christian duty." 

(') — I would do nothing of the kind without thine 
express consent. When Paul writes, " But without 
thy min-d would I do nothing," we must understand 
him as referring to what he has written in the verse 
preceding. 

(*) — Shoiddest receive him again for life. For this 
use of the expression {aionios) ''for ever^"' as applied 
to slaves, see Sep. Ex. XXI. 5, 6 : — " And if the ser- 
vant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, 
and my children ; I will not go out free ; then his 
master shall bring him unto the judges : he shall also 
bring him unto the door, or unto the door-post : and 
his master shall bore his ear through with an awl ; 
and he shall serve him for ever^ See also Deut. 
XT. ir ; Lev. XXY. 46. 

(^) — Not as a fugitive slave. So Doddridge para- 
phrases the clause, and we think, correctly; since 



APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 41 

Paul is here speaking immediately of Onesimus' 
reception by his master, and not of his subsequent 
relation to him. And we know, from other sources, 
that the treatment commonly received by returned 
fugitives was very severe. 

(') — Hath loronged thee in rimning away. " Many 
are of opinion that Onesimus robbed his master before 
he ran off. But of this there is no evidence ; unless 
we think the expression, ver. 18, ^ If he have injured 
thee in anything^ contain an insinuation of this sort. 
But the Apostle might mean, injured thee by the loss 
of his services. The words will fairly bear this inter- 
pretation. Why then, as Lardner observes, impute 
crimes to men without proof?" — M^KnigMs Int. to 
Phil. " From these words, many infer that Onesi- 
mus had been guilty of robbery as well as desertion. 
But the recent commentators seem right in thinking 
that the terms will scarcely authorize us to suppose 
this. Adikase may apply to the having wronged his 
master by depriving him of his services during his 
absence, or perhaps by idleness before." — Bloom- 
fieWs N. T. 



42 THE CHKISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 



REMARKS. 

First. — In his preface to this Epistle to Philemon, 
M'Knight writes : — " What the Apostle wrote to 
Philemon on tliis occasion is highly worthy of our 
notice : namely, that although he had great need of 
an affectionate and honest servant to minister to 
him in his bonds, such as Onesimus was, who had 
expressed a great inclination to stay with him ; and 
although if Onesimus had remained with him, he 
would only have discharged the duty which Phile- 
mon himself owed to his spiritual father, yet the 
Apostle will by no means detain Onesimus without 
Philemon's leave, 'because it belonged to him to dispose 
of his own slave in the way he thought proper. {See 
also the Paraphrases of Whitby and Doddridge on 
this point.) Such was the Ap(?Stle's regard to justice 
and the rights of mankind." And subsequently, 
when setting forth the uses to be made of this epistle, 
he writes : — " Christianity makes no alteration in 
men's political state. Onesimus, the slave, did not 
become a freeman by embracing Christianity, but 
was still obliged to be Philemon's slave for ever, 
unless his master gave him his freedom. Slaves 
should not be taken^ nor detained from their masters^ 
without their inaster'^s consent.'^'^ {See Paraphrases of 
Whitby and Doddridge on this point also.) 



APOSTOLIC P^XAMPLK. 43 

Second. — Dr. Barnes, in his notes on the expression, 
"whom T have sent again," (ver. 12,) makes /<9?;r 
remarks, to which we will briefly turn the reader's 
attention. 

1. "There is not the slightest evidence that he 
(Paul) compelled him (Onesimus), or even urged him 
to go. The language is just such as would have 
been used on the supposition either that he requested 
him to go and bear a letter to Colosse, or that Onesi- 
mus desired to go, and that Paul sent him agreeably 
to his request. Comp. Phil. 11. 25. 'Yet I sup- 
posed it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my 
brother and companion in labor.' — Col. lY. 7, 8. 
' All my state shall Tychicus declare unto you, who 
is a beloved brother, and a faithful minister and 
fellow-servant in the Lord : whom I have sent unto 
you.' But Epa]3hroditus and Tychicus were not sent 
against their own will, nor is there any more reason 
to think that Onesimus was." — Barnes^ Notes. 

]^ot to dwell upon the fact that the Greek words 
ti-anslated sent in Phil. II. 25, and Col. lY. 7, are not 
the same with that used in Philemon, 12, and there- 
fore cannot properly be appealed to in interpreting 
that word : We remark, in these instances, Epaphro- 
ditus and Tychicus were sent by Paul, the one to 
Philippi, the other to Colosse — in virtue of his Apos- 
tolic authority, as all commentators are agreed. Not 



44 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTKINE OF SLAVERY. 

against their will, if they were' worthy Christian 
ministers, taught of the Spirit of God to submit 
themselves to one set over them in the Lord ; yet 
not, on that account, the less sent by Paul the 
Apostle, in virtue of that authority which Christ 
had conferred upon him in calling him to the 
Apostleship. 

2. " Paul had no power to send Onesimus back to 
his master, unless he chose to go. He had no civil 
authority ; he had no guard to accompany him ; he 
could intrust him to no sheriff to convey him from 
place to place, and he had no means of controlling 
him, if he chose to go to any other place than 
Colosse. He could indeed have sent him away from 
himself," (qy. 1st, How could he have sent him, see- 
ing he had no civil authority, guard or sheriff, to 
convey him? 2d, Could he not have sent him to 
Colosse in the same way?) " he could have told him 
to go to Colosse ; but there his power ended. One- 
simus then could have gone where he pleased. But 
there is no evidence that Paul even told him to go to 
Colosse against his own inclination, or that he would 
have sent him away at all, unless he had himself 
requested it." — Barnes' Notes. 

The quibble involved in this note of Dr. B. is so 
evident as to need no comment from us. 

3. " There may have been many reasons why 



APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 45 

Onesimus desired to return to Colosse, and no one 
can prove that lie did not express that desire to Paul, 
and that his sending him was not in consequence of 
such request. He may have been poor and a stran- 
ger in Kome, and may have been greatly disap- 
pointed in what he had expected to find there when 
he left Philemon, and may have desired to return to 
the comparative comforts of his former condition." — 
Barnes'' Notes. 

If this reason for Onesimus' return be admitted to 
be the true one, we remark, the whole transaction 
does very little credit either to him or to Paul as 
Christian men. The case, as Dr. B. presents it, is 
that of a man who, before his conversion, has over- 
reached himself in attempting to over-reach a Christ- 
ian brother; and who, after his conversion, takes 
advantage of his Christian profession to throw the 
bad bargain upon the hands of the Christian brother 
whom he had attempted to wrong. Dr. B. may 
believe this of an Apostle of Jesus, if he can ; for 
ourselves, we have far too much respect (to use no 
stronger term) for the memory both of Paul and his 
convert Onesimus to admit any such explanation of 
their conduct as this. 

4. '^ It may be added, therefore, that this passage 
should not be adduced to justify any sort of influence 
over a run-away slave to induce him to return to his 



46 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

former master. There is not the least evidence that 
this occurred in the case before us. If this instance 
is ever appealed to, it should be to justify what 
Paul did — and, nothing elaeP — Barnes^ Notes. 

If Paul did not " use any sort of influence over 
Onesimus to induce him to return to his former 
master," what does he mean by writing ''whom I 
have sent again?" Even giving the word the most 
limited signification possible, it would certainly 
imply the use of some sort of influence. Dr. B. 
occasionally has fugitive slaves come to him, (see 
" Scriptural Yiews of Slavery," p. 324), and of late 
years, he never " uses any sort of influence to induce 
them to return to their former masters." Supposing 
I should publish the statement — Dr. Barnes sends 
back to his master every fugitive slave that comes 
to him — would not Dr. B. cry out npon me as a 
slanderer ? 

But, writes Dr. B. ; " There is no certain evidence 
that Onesimus was ever a slave at all." — Notes on 
ver. 16. " All that is stated of him in this epistle, 
would be met by the supposition that he was hound 
to Philemon, either by his parents or guardians. It 
is perhaps quite as common for apprentices to run 
away, as it is for slaves^'' — Barnes'' Int. to Philemon. 

We are surprised that Dr. B., having made such a 
pregnant discovery as this, makes so little use of it 



APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 47 

in his after labors upon this epistle. Had he turned 
to Acts XYIIL 3, he might have read — "And 
because he (Paul) was of the same craft, he abode 
with them (Priscilla and Aquila) and wrought, for 
by their occupation they were tent-makers.^'' Now, 
Philemon " maif^ have been a tent-maker also. ^^ No 
one can prove that he was not.^^ And Paul, when he 
addresses him as his " fellow-worker {sunergos)^^^ ver. 
1, '■^may^'' have meant fellow-worker at the tent- 
making business. And when he speaks of himself 
as Philemon's " partner," ver. 17, he " may " have 
meant his partner in the tent-making business. 
"iTc? one can prove that he was not^'' And One- 
simus, as Dr. B. suggests, " may " have been a mere 
apprentice, bound by his father or guardian to Phile- 
mon and Paul, tent-makers. ^^ No one can jprove 
that he was notP And then: the whole transaction 
appears in an entirely new light. And no one will 
have a right to infer any thing at all respecting 
fugitive slaves, from this epistle to Philemon. 

Should Dr. B. feel inclined to consider this inter- 
pretation, with an eye to a future edition of his Notes, 
we would suggest — 

1. It is more ingenious — not to say ingenuous — 
than the remark that Paul could not have sent One- 
simus to Colosse, because he had "no guard or 
sheriff" at his disposal. 



48 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

2. It is far less derogatory to the Christian charac- 
ter, both of Paul and of Onesimus, than the reason 
Dr. B. assigns in his note 3d for Onesimus' return to 
Lis master. 

3. It can be supported throughout bj Dr. B.'s two 
favorite arguments — " It may have 'heen^'^ " No one 
can prove that it was not so " — and so, will fonn a 
homogeneous part of his JSTotes on Philemon. 

4. It disposes, at once, of the whole swarm of minor 
difficulties, springing up from every part of this epis- 
tle, which seems to have stung Dr. B. to temporary 
blindness. But enough of such notes as these. 

An ingenuous interpretation of Paul's words, 
^'■whom I have sent again^'' will make them convey 
the idea, that Onesimus, after his conversion under 
Paul's teaching, " becomes sensible of his fault in 
running away from his master, and wishes to repair 
the injury by returning to him." — McKnight. And 
Paul, taking this same view of his past conduct and 
present duty, directs him to return. We do not sup- 
pose that Onesimus returned against his will^ any 
more than Zaccheus, on his conversion, made restitu- 
tion of what he had before taken wrongfully, (see 
Luke XIX. 8,) against his will. In both instances 
alike, the Holy Spirit made the convert willing to 
repair any and every wrong done before conversion. 



APOSTOLIC EXAMPLE. 



But that Paul, as liis instructor in Christian truth 
and duty, directed Onesimus to return to his former 
master, is clearly implied in his words — " whom I 
have sent again." 



CHAPTER III. 

APOSTOLIC PKECEPT. 

" When he, tlie Spirit of Trutli, is come, lie will 
"guide you into all trutli."— Jno. XYI. 13. 

§ 9. The Apostles kepeatedlt enjoin the relative 
Duties of Masters and Slaves, and enforce 
THEIR Injunctions upon both alike, as Chris- 
tian Men, by Christian Motives; ^uniformly 
treating the Evils which they sought to cor- 
rect AS incidental Evils, and not part and 
parcel of Slavery itself. 

Proof.— ^>A. VI. 5-9 ; Ool. III. 22-25, IV. 1 ; 
1 Tim. FZ 1, 2 ; Titus II 9, 10 ; 1 I'et. II 18, 19. 

Eph. YI. 5-9. 

" Servants {douloi) be olDedicnt to those that are 
" your masters according to the flesh, -with fear and 
" trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto 

50 



APOSTOLIC PEECEPT. 51 

" Christ ; not with eje-service, as men-pleasers, but 
" as the servants {douloi) of Christ, doing the will of 
" God from the heart ; with good-will doing service, 
" as to the Lord, and not to men : knowing that what- 
" soever good thing any man doeth, the same shall 
" he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or 
" free." 

" And ye masters, do the same things nnto them, 
" forbearing threatening : knowing that your master 
*' also is in heaven ; neither is there respect of per- 
" sons with him." 



CoL. IIL 22-25 ; lY. 1. 

" Servants {douloi) obey in all things your masters 
" according to the flesh ; not with eye-service, as 
" men-pleasers ; but in singleness of heart, fearing 
" God ; and whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to 
" the Lord, and not unto men ; knowing that of the 
" Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance : 
" for ye serve the Lord Christ. But he that doeth 
" wrong, shall receive for the wrong which he hath 
" done ; and there is no respect of persons." 

" Masters, give unto your servants {douloi) that 
" which is just and equal ; knowing that ye also have 
" a master in heaven." 



52 THE CHKISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

1 Tm. YI. 1, 2. 

"Let as many servants {douloi) as are under the 
" yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, 
" that the name of God and his doctrine be not blas- 
" phemed. And they that have believing masters, 
" let them not despise them, because they are breth- 
" ren ; but rather do them service, because they are 
" faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit." 

Titus II. 9, 10. 

" Exhort servants {douloi) to be obedient to their 
" own masters, and to please them well in all things ; 
" not answering again, not purloining, but showing all 
" good fidelity ; that they may adorn the doctrine of 
" God our Saviour in all things." 

Peter II. 18, 19. 

"Servants {oilcetaif' be subject to your masters 
" with all fear ; not only to the good and gentle, but 
" also to the froward ; for this is thankworthy, if a 

* " Oiketas. In the N. T. a domestic, a servant. Luke XVI. 13 ; 
Acts X. 7 ; Rom. XIV. V—Eobinsoji's iV T. Lexicoyi. 

" Strictly, an inmate of one's house : but most usually, a Iwuse- 
slave, meyiiaiy — LiJfkll and Scott. 



APOSTOLIC PKECEPT. 53 

" man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffer- 
" ing wrongfully." ^^^. 

Instead of giving the reader a paraphrase of these 
several passages — and their meaning, in so far as it 
bears upon the point now under consideration, is so 
obvious as to render a paraphrase unnecessary — we 
give an admirable summary of the instruction they 
contain, in the words of Bishop Wilson : 

" If the deepest student of Christian morals were 
to endeavor to point out the especial dangers to which 
servants are exposed, he could mention none so pro- 
minent as those named by our inspired Apostle. The 
experience of all ages agrees upon these matters. 
Eye-servcmts who watch the absence of their masters 
for indolence or negligence ;' pert and froward ser- 
vants, who answer disrespectfully when rebuked ; 
dishonest servants, who, instead of guarding their 
master's house, food, provisions, stores, gardens, fur- 
niture, property, ' with all good fidelity,' ' purloin,' 
and give away to their companions whatever they 
can ; ill-instructed religious servants, who take liber- 
ties with their masters, if they are pious and devout 
persons ; lastly, hypocritical and disputatious servants, 
who abuse the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and 
dote about abstruse questions, which they cannot 
understand, and which do not concern their prac- 



54: THE CHEISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

tical duties ; tliese are allowed by all to be the most 
unprofitable and disgrac^l to the Gospel they pro- 
fess, of all kinds of persons in stations of dependence. 
" How precisely adapted to the dangers to which 
masters are exposed in the performance of their 
duties to their inferiors," are the instructions ad- 
dressed to them. " Tliey are to give to their servants 
or slaves ' that which is just and equal ;' that measure 
of support and recompense for their labors, which 
their contract with them or the natural laws of God 
require ; that care of them in sickness ; that provision 
in old age ; that proportional reward for extraordi- 
nary fidelity and exertions ; in a word, all that con- 
siderate, reasonable, and affectionate attention, which 
they, in like circumstances, would wish their servants 
to render to them ; ' forbearing threatening,' and 
remembering that they also have a master in heaven ; 
and exercising, therefore, their authority with hu- 
manity and gentleness, not only without inflicting 
rigorous punishment, as it was too common for mas- 
ters to do, but also forbearing to menace and terrify 
their servants, or to express any haughty or excessive 
anger at them even when faulty. For though the 
law of man might give them great power, yet they 
w^ere accountable to the great Lord and Master of all 
for their use of it ; who would deal with them accord- 
ing to their conduct to their inferiors, as well as 



APOSTOLIC PRECEPT. 55 

others ; and who expects his people to copy the ex- 
ample of his own divine mercj and leniency. 

" The wisdom of the inspired Apostle in these 
directions is most observable. He enters not ab- 
stractedly upon the subject of slavery, in tlije existing 
state of the world, but requires implicit obedience 
from servants to their masters ; enjoining, at the 
same time, on the masters equity and mildness, and 
not the absolute manumission of their slaves. It was 
by working in this unobtrusive way — in making 
good husbands, good wives, good children, good ser- 
servants, good magistrates, good rulers, good sover- 
eigns — that Christianity was to produce its stupen- 
dous effects."— ^j?. Wilso}i on Col., pp. 340, 343. 



REMARKS. 

First. — In his Epistles to the Ephesians and Colos- 
sians, Paul treats of the relative duties of master and 
slave in immediate connection with those of husband 
and wife, parent and child ; in his Epistle to Titus, 
in very much the same connection, with the addition 
of rulers and subjects. And Peter treats of these 
duties in connection with those of husbands and 
wdves, rulers and subjects. And let the reader 
remark, that in form, at least, Paul and Peter treat 
them all in the sarn<^ way. 



56 THE CHKISTIAN DOCTEINE OF 6LAVEEY. 

In the Apostles' days, all these relations were 
greatly abused. The civil government under which 
they lived, and labored, and preached, and wrote, 
was a despotic government, and in its actual admi- 
nistration oppressive, and often exceedingly corrupt. 
Nero was emperor throughout the greater part of 
Paul's ministry, and many of his epistles were 
written from a Itoman prison, into which he had 
been unrighteously cast. Throughout the Roman 
empire, the wife, the child, and the slave were, in 
law as well as in fact, on very nearly the same level.* 
The Apostles found incidental evils, many and great, 
attaching to all those relations of life, and these were 
sanctioned by law. 

* The condition of the Child. — " A father, under the Koraan law 
had the power of life and death over his children. He could not only 
expose them when infants, which cruel custom prevailed at Rome for 
many ages, as among other nations, but even when his children were 
grown up, he might imprison, scourge,. send them bound into the 
country, and also put them to death by any punishment he pleased." 
— "A sou could acquire no property but with the father's consent; 
and what he did thus acquire was called his peculium., as that of a 
slave. The condition of a son was in some respects harder than that 
of a slave. None of them became their own masters till the death of 
their father and grandfather." — Adam's Rom. Ant. p. 60. 

The condition of the Wife. — " A daughter by marriage passed from 
the power of her father under that of her husband. — " The woman 
was to the husband in the place of a daughter, and he to her as a 
father."— ^lc/am'« Rom. Ant., pp. 60, 441. 



APOSTOLIC PRECEPT. 57 

Calledj in such circumstances, to preacli the Gos- 
pel, and to teach mankind righteousness, they did 
not shut their eyes to the abuses of these several 
institutions — civil government, marriage, the family, 
slavery ; nor do they affect an ignorance of them, but 
carefully distinguishing between the institutions them- 
selves and the abuses which had become attached to 
them, they set themselves to work with zeal and 
faithfulness — faithfulness at once to God and to man 
— to correct the abuses. 

With civil government, marriage, the family, and 
slavery they dealt in the same way. All that Tvas 
sinful, contrary to the laws of God, in each, as then 
actually existing, they clearly and unequivocally 
condemn ; and within the pale of the Church, by 
their authority as Apostles, and in the w^orld at 
large, through the influence of their teaching and 
example, they labored to remove. But they touch not 
the institutions themselves. They require subjects 
" to submit themselves to every ordinance of man for 
the Lord's sake ; whether it be to tlie king, as su- 
preme, or unto governors, as unto them that are sent 
by him for the punishment of evil-doers and for the 
praise of them that do w^ell." " Wives to submit 
themselves to their own husbands, as unto the Lord,'' 
and hiislands " to love their wives, even as Chi-ist 
loved the Church and gave himself for it." Children 

3* 



58 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

" to obey their parents," and parents " to bring np 
their children in the nurture and admonition of the 
Lord." Slaves " to be obedient to tliose who were 
their masters according to the flesh, in singleness of 
heart, as unto Christ," and masters " to give unto 
their servants that which was just and equal, know- 
ing that they also had a master in heaven." Thus 
they sought to make good subjects, good wives, good 
husbands, good children, good parents, good slaves, 
good masters ; good, in the Bible sense of the word 
good — that is, discharging all the duties growing 
out of their several relations as men and as Christ- 
ians. 

The condition of the wife in this our Cliristian 
land is not now what it was throughout the civilized 
world, both in law and in fact, at the time Christ- 
ianity was first preached among men. And it would 
be easy to show that Christianity, applied to human 
life in the way in which the Apostles applied it, has 
wrought this change. That there are yet incidental 
evils attaching to the marriage relation ; that the 
husband often abuses the authority which belongs to 
him as a husband, and that these abuses are sanc- 
tioned by the laws of the land — the laws respecting 
property, for example — no one, we presume, will 
deu}^. Tliat the industrious, pains-taking wife should 
be turned out of " house and home," and stripped 



APOSTOLIC PRECEPT. 69 

even of that which she has herself earned, to pay the 
debts contracted by a profligate husband, is not an 
unknown event in any of our States. But will any 
God-fearing man, in liis senses, on this account, 
denounce the marriage relation, and advocate the 
doctrine of the " Free-lovers ?" 

The condition of the child, in the United States, is 
very different from what it was in old Eome ; and 
Christianity has wrought this change. And yet, in 
this Christian land, in spite of all the guards which 
the law has thrown around '' the helplessness of 
childhood," and all the influence of the Gospel, direct 
and indirect, the authority of the father is often 
greatly abused. From time to time we read in the 
papers of fathers cruelly beating, starving, and even 
murdering their own children ; and this in every 
part of the land. Shall we therefore abolish the 
authority of the father, and introduce socialism, mak- 
ing children the immediate care of the community ? 
Can any Christian man believe that, in so doing, he 
would be doing either God or humanity a service ? 

The condition of the slave, in our country, is very 
different from what it was throughout the Eoman 
empire in Paul's day. And this change also is one 
of the trophies of our heaven-descended Christianity. 
That there are incidental evils yet attaching to the 
institution, both in law and in fact, all will admit — 



60 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

evils which Christianity, working in God's appointed 
way, will ere long remove, we firmly believe. It has 
done a mighty work in da3^s Ly-gone ; it has always 
worked well. All that has ever been done for the 
slave has been done through its agency ; and we arc 
perfectly willing to trust it for the future, believing, as 
we do, that the time will yet come when all men will 
see and acknowledge that in this, as in other matters, 
" the foolishness of God is wiser than man." 

Second. — Referring to the Scriptural injunctions 
addressed to slaves, and quoted at the head of this 
section. Dr. Barnes writes : — " But let not a master 
think, because a pious slave shows this spirit, that 
therefore the slave feels that the master is right in 
withholding his freedom ; nor let him suppose, be- 
cause religion requires the slave to be submissive and 
obedient, that therefore it approves of what the mas- 
ter does. It does this no more than it sanctions the 
conduct of Kero and Mary, because religion required 
the martyrs to be unresisting, and to allow themselves 
to be led to the stake. A conscientious slave may 
find happiness in submitting to God and doing his 
will, just as a conscientious martyr may. But 
this does not sanction the wrong, either of the 
slave-owner or the persecutor." — Barnes^ N'otes, 
Eph. VI. 71. 

Supposing we admit the correctness of this view 



APOSTOLIC PRECEPT. 61 

of tlie injunctions addressed to slaves, we must then 
interpret the corresponding injunctions addressed to 
masters, in immediate connection with these, upon 
the same principles. And Paul's words, in Eph. YI. 9, 
Col. lY. 1, would read somewhat in this way: — 
" Saintly and faithful" l^ero, impale, crucify, cast to 
the wild beasts, if you please, the disciples of Jesus : 
but see to it, as you must answer to God for your 
conduct, that you '' give unto them that which is just 
and equal" in this whole matter. And you. Bloody 
Mary, kindle the fires of Smithfield anew, and send 
your brethren in Jesus to the stake ; but, " beloved 
of God," burn these holy men with the same meek- 
ness and single-eye for God's glory with which they 
submit to be burned. 



§ 10. Paul declares that his Doctrine respecting 
THE Duties of Slaves and Masters is whole- 
some DOCTRINE, ACCORDINa TO GoDLINESS AND 

THE Doctrine of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

Proof.— 1 Tim, VI. 1-3. 

" Let as many servants {douloi) as are under the 
" yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, 
*' that the name of God and of his doctrine be not 



62 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

" blasphemed. And they that have believing masters. 
*' let them not despise them, because they are bre- 
" thren ; but rather do them service, because they 
"are faithful and beloved, partakei's of the benefit. 
" These things teach and exhort." 

3. " If any man teach otherwise, and consent not 
" to wholesome words, even the words of the Lord 
" Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is accord- 
" ing to godliness, he is proud," etc. 

Paraphrase of Yer. 3. — If any man teach that 
slaves ought not to count even unbelieving masters 
worthy of all honor, and to render to believing mas- 
ters the more cheerful and hearty service because 
they are believers, he teaches what is at variance 
with the doctrine which is according to godliness and 
wholesome words, even the expressed will of the Lord 
Jesus Christ. i^Y 



* " If any man tcacli otherwise, and consent not to wholesome 
words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, (Matt. XX. 27, He 
that woukl be first among yon, let him be your sei'vant, or servant 
of all — Mark, X. 44,) and to the doctrine which is according to godli- 
ness."— Whithif. 

"If any one teach differently, by affirming that, under the Grosiicl, 
slaves are not bound to serve their masters, but ought to be set free, 
and docs not consent to the wholesome commandments which arc 



APOSTOLIC PRECEPT. 63 

N'oTE.(') — The expressed will of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. " All the precepts which the Apostles de- 
livered by inspiration being precepts of Christ, there 
is no occasion to suppose that he referred to some 
precepts concerning slaves, which Christ, while on 
earth, delivered to his Apostles, and which, thougli 
not recorded by the Evangelists, were made known 
to Paul by revelation ;" or, to understand him as 
referring to such precepts as are actually recorded in 
the Gospels, but which do not directly refer to the 
case under consideration, as Whitby has done. 
Commissioned, as the Apostles were, to j^erfect the 
organization, of the Christian Church, and complete 
the sacred cannon, and guided by " the Spirit of 
Jesus" into all truth, what they taught may, with 
strictest propriety, be spoken of as " the words of the 

our Lord Jesus Christ's, and to the doctrine of the Gospel, which in 
all points is conformable to true morality, he is," etc. — McKniglit. 

*' These things which I have been mentioning, take care, Timo- 
thy, to teach and exhort thine hearers always to maintain a due 
regard to them. And if any one teach otherwise, if he attempt to 
broach principles contrary to these great maxims, and attend not to 
such sound and wholesome words, even to those of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, as these may with strict propriety be called, and which 
express the doctrine that is agreeable and subservient to the great 
cause of practical godliness, which it is the declared design of tlie 
G-ospel to promote in the world, whatever fair show of simplicity and 
humility he may affect, he is certainly proud," etc. — Doddridge. 



64 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

Lord Jesus Christ." This, Paul distinctly asserts in 
his first epistle to the Corinthians : " If any man think 
himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknow- 
ledge that the things that I write unto you are the 
commandments of the Lord." — 1 Cor. XIY. 37. 



Remarks. 

Paul's declaration in the passage under examina- 
tion, refers expressly to such as should teach false 
doctrine respecting the duties of slaves alone. Yet, 
upon fair principles of interpretation, it must be 
understood to include those also, if such there were, 
as taught false doctrine respecting the correlative 
duties of masters. The " doctrine which is according 
to godliness," teaches the slave to serve his master 
with singleness of heart;" and just as distinctly 
teaches the master to give unto the slave " that which 
is just and equal." Master and slave are alike the 
creatures of God, the objects of his care, the subjects 
of his government : and alike responsible to him for 
the discharge of the duties belonging to their several 
stations. 



APOSTOLIC PRECEPT. 65 



§ 11. Paul treats the Diste^-ctions wnicii Slavery 

CREATES AS MatTERS OF VERY LITTLE IMPORTANCE 

in so far as the interests of the christian 
Life are concerned. 

Proof.— 6'«Z. III. 2S ; 1 Cor. XII. 13 ; Col. III. 
11 ; 1 Cor. VII 20, 21. 

Gal. III. 28. 

" There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither 
" bond {doulos) nor free {eleuthereos)^ there is neither 
" male nor female ; for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." 

1. Cor. XII. 13. 

" For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one 
" body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we 
" be bond {douloi) or free {eleutheroi) ; and have been 
"^ all made to drink into one spirit." 

Col. III. 11. 

" Where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circum- 
*' cision nor uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bond 
" {doidos) nor free {eleuthereos) : but Christ is all and 
" in all." 



66 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

The common sentiment of these passages of Scrip- 
ture is well expressed by Doddridge, in his para- 
phrase of the last quoted : " Thus you will indeed 
become genuine members of that blessed society 
where there is no distinction between men of differ- II 
ent rations, education, or rank in life; where neither 
is any man rejected for being a Greek, nof accepted 
merely for being a Jew ; a society where he can 
claim nothing by virtue of circumcision, nor lose any- 
thing by uncircumcision ; where no Barbarians, or 
even Scythians, are treated with contempt for that 
want of learning and politeness which is to be found 
in the most remote nations ; or any slave trampled 
upon as unworthy of notice, since he shares with 
others in the possession of that inestimable treasure, 
an immortal soul, and may have a part in the great 
Eedeemer of souls ; nor is a freeman chiefly esteemed 
or regarded upon account of his boasted liberty, but 
rather in proportion to his subjugation to our divine 
master : for this is the great bond of union among 
them all, the matter of their boasting and their joy, 
that they are related to Christ, who is acknowledged 
to be all that is amiable and excellent, and who 
dwells in all true believers, without any difference on 
any of these accounts." 



APOSTOLIC PRECEPT. 67 



1 CoE. VII. 20, 21. 

" IT. But as God liatli distributed to every man, 
" as the Lord hath called every one, so let him walk. 
" And so ordain I in all the churches. 18. Is any 
" man called being circumcised ? let him not become 
" uncircumcised. Is any called in uncircumcision ? 
''let him not be circumcised. 19. Circumcision is 
" nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the 
" keeping of the commandments of God. 20. Let 
" every man abide in the same calling wherein he 
" was called. 2L Art thou called being a servant ? 
" care not for it ; but if thou raayest be made free, 
" use it rather." 

Pakaphease of ver. 20, 21. — Since Christ's " king- 
dom is not of this world," (Jno. XYIIL 36,) his Gos- 
pel makes no alteration in a man's civil relations or 
^oliticcil state^ and hence I ordain in all tlie churches 
that Christian men remain in the same condition, in 
so far as these are concerned,(^) in which the Gospel 
finds them. Art thou called of God, being a slave 
{doidos\ care not for it, as though it could affect 
thine acceptance with God, or thine acceptable ser- 
vice of him. Yet if they can lawfully be made free, 
as a general rule^i^) slaves had better accept their 



68 THE CHKISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

freedom ; for a condition of slavery is not one to be 
desired on its own account.* 

!N'oTES.(^) — The same condition^ i, <?., the same civil 
relations or political state. The word hlaseis^ is here, 

* " Let every man abide still in the same calling wherein he was 
called to the faith, not thinking himself obliged by it to quit his call- 
ing. Art thou called being a servant, care not for it : but if thou 
mayest lawfully be made free, use it rather." — Whitby. 

" Since the Gospel makes no alteration in men's political state, let 
every Christian remain in the same political state in which he was 
called. Agreeably to this rule, wast thou called being a bondman, 
be not thou solicitous to be made free, fancying that a bondman is 
less the object of God's favor than a freeman. Yet if thou canst even 
be made free by any lawful method, rather obtain thy freedom." — 
McKnight. 

"As for other matters, be not excessively concerned about them: 
but in whatever calling, that is, profession or circumstances, any one 
of you was called, in that let him continue : aflFcct not to change 
without the clear and evident leadings of Providence, as there is 
generally greater reason to expect comfort and usefulness in such a 
calling than in another. And I may apply this not only to the diffe- 
rent employments, but relations in life, as well as diversity in reli- 
gious professions. Art thou, for instance, called into the Church of 
Christ, being in the low rank, not only of a hired servant, but of a 
slave? do not so much regard it as ui)ou that account to make thy 
life uneasy : but if thou canst, without any sinful method of obtaining 
it, be made free, choose it rather, as what is no doubt in itself eligible, 
yet not absolutely necessary to the happiness of a good )nan." — 
Doddridge. 



APOSTOLIC PRECEPT. 69 

evidently, not used in the sense of "calling," as we 
understand that word at the present day, and as 
Doddridge seems to have understood it ; since Paul's 
specifications under the general term are, circumcised 
and uncircumcised, bond and free. Liddell and Scott 
give this definition^" II. in Dion H. Uaseis and 
kaleseis, are the Roman classes^ which word he de- 
rives there from." This is doubtless the sense in which 
Paul uses it here ; and as we have no one English 
word which corresponds exactly to it, we have para- 
phrased it, " civil relations or jpolitical stateP 

(^) — As a general rule. That Paul does not mean 
here, to give anything more than general advice, is 
evident from the language he uses, " use it rather," 
as well as from the whole tenor of the context. There 
are many cases in which the advice to a slave to 
become free where his master would willingly grant 
him his freedom, would be neither kind nor wise. 
Indeed, the greatest practical difiiculties which the 
enlightened Christian citizen encounters in attempt- 
ing to solve the problem of emancipation, are such as 
grow out of the obligation to act with a righteous 
regard to the subsequent w^ell-being of the slave. 



70 THE CHEISTIAN DOCTTRIXE OF SLAVERY. 



Remarks. 

First. — In the passage under examination, Paul 
must be understood as speaking in his character of a 
religious teacher, an Apostle of Christ ; and lience, 
when he treats the relation of master and slave as a 
matter of very little importance, we must understand 
him to mean, of very little importance in so far as the 
duties and interests of the Cliristian life are concerned. 
In other words — a man can be as good a Christian, 
and can as acceptably serve God, as a slave, if in 
God's providence the Gospel finds him a slave, as he 
could had it found him a free man. Slavery is not 
only not tJie great impediment, but not a great im- 
pediment in the way of the spread of the Gospel. 

A practical proof of this is afibrded in the case of 
the slaves in our Southern states, — although there is 
not a little of incidental evil attaching to slavery as 
it exists among us, — in such facts as these, viz. : 

1. A larger proportion of the laboring classes be- 
long to the Christian Church in the Southern than in 
the Northern states of the Union. 

2. If it be true, as alleged — and we believe that it 
is true — that the piety of the Christian slaves at the 
South is of a lower, less intelligent grade than that 
of the laborers of the North, we have at the South, as 



AVOHTOLUi I'ltWJlJl. 71 

an ollricit U) l.liiri, an altnoHt (tiillni <;X(;tn|)lioii jjoin 
[JiiivdrHaliHrn, Spirit.iJJiliHin, MormoiiiHin, .'likI \\i(i 
many loriiiH oi' l)a[)l,Iz<:<l lnli<l<;llt,y, wlilcli initiibcr 
their diH(;ij)lcfl by thouHand.H atnorig tlio laboring 
claHHOB in tlio Free StatcH. It fiecmg but fair, too, in 
taking ar:r:ourit of* tlifi lower grade of piety prevailing 
uM\(>UjS oiii* ('hriritian Hlav<tn, to n-.tiK-iiiln-.v tliat tlioso 
HJavcH an;, many of them, but a very few generations 
remov(Ml fronj h<;ath(;nirtm in its inowt debarting, 
degrading form ; and all hintory tefltlfi<;fl that a 
degradation vvhieh ban Ixicfi going on through ages 
(!an b(.- oidy gra<lually overcome. 

Hnmnd. — When I'aid writes, — " If thou rnayeat be 
made U'('m^ une it rather," we munt underntand him 
an givirig thin direr^tion wifli enpeelal ref(*rene(i to the 
Htato of thingH (ixihting in (ir(;<-<!e at the time h<j 
wrol<; l.hJH epihih; to the ('hnrcli at. < 'oilnl.h, 'llii.-i irt 
a H<jund i'ul«;of Inter[>n;l:ation in all (vxm-a of tiiin kind, 
find Ih (thp<;elally fiuggehted In tin; eane before nn by 
tho eontexf. In ver. 27 h«; writ<*fl : — ''Art ihoii 

boufid fo a wifo'i? H(:(;k not to b(3 looiftd. Alt l/i.ofi 
iooHadfronfh a 'impt f H(utk not n. mife.^'' No ingcnmuiH 
interpreter ban ever urnlerrfood Paul an here intond- 
ing to diMf,<jiint(inaneo marriage, or an in a/iy way 
eonlradieling \\\(\ <llvifie dcelarati'nj, " it in not good 
for man to bo aloiu.-." It waw in view of " iho pro 
H<;nt dirttrehH," 1. e. liability to porhoeutlot) for their 



72 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

religion's sake, Paul gives the advice he does respect- 
ing marriage. 

So in the words " if thou may est he made free^ use 
it rather ^^ if we wonld fairly interpret them for the 
purpose of applying the truth they teach in our 
country, and at the present day, we must take into 
account, — 

1. In Rome, and in Greece also, slaves were held 
^^ jpro quadrujpedibus^^ i. e. as cattle, and the master 
might torture tliem, or even put them to death, at 
his will. (See § 3,) In contrast with this, a slave in 
our Southern States is as truly a man, in the eye of 
the law, as is the master. A master will be hung as 
quickly for the murder of his slave as he would for 
that of a freeman. In this view of the case, Calvin, 
in his comments on this passage, writes : — " This 
admonition was very necessary at that time, when 
slaves were driven by threats and stripes, and even 
fear of death, to obey every kind of command with- 
out selection or exception, so that they reckoned the 
procuring of prostitutes, and other crimes of that 
nature, to be duties belonging to slaves, equally with 
honorable employments." 

2. Most of the slaves in Paul's day, especially those 
in Greece, were of nations so closely allied to that of 
the master that they could freely intermingle if set 
free, and in the course of a few generations all trace 



APOSTOLIC PRECEPT. 73 

of tlieir servile condition would disappear. The case 
of tlie slaves in our Southern States is very different. 
We fully and firmly believe in the doctrine of the 
" unity of the human race ;" that " God has made of 
one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the 
face of the earth." Even if the physiologist could 
find no trace of this unity in the body : The body is 
not all of man, black or white. He has a soul also. 
And the fatal sin of our common parent, " the first 
Adam," has branded its mark of our unity just as 
deeply and indelibly upon the soul of the negro, as it 
has on that of the Anglo-Saxon. And in the regene- 
ration of the Christian negro, the Holy Spirit brings 
out a second, and, blessed be God ! a brighter mark 
of that same' unity, in his union with Christ, ^' the 
second Adam." And every time that the Christian 
master and slave sit side by side at the Lord's table 
— and in a ministry of twenty years at the South I 
never recollect to have sat at the Lord's table when 
there were not slaves at the same table — we make a 
public profession of our faith on this point. 

But that the negro cannot mingle with the Anglo- 
Saxon in our country, it matters not for our present 
purpose why this be so ; we need no clearer proof 
than that afforded in the facts — ^1. Tliat in the free 
States, where the number of negroes is very small, 
they never have been admitted upon equal footing 

4 



74 TFIE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

with the whites ; and 2. Whenever the number of 
negroes has seemed likely to increase to any great 
extent, in any of those States, immediately laws have 
been passed to prevent their immigration, as in 
Ohio. 

There are impediments then in the way of a slave's 
attaining to the rank of a genuine freeman, even 
where his legal freedom has been granted him, exist- 
ing in our country, and at the present day, which 
did not exist in Corinth at the time Paul wrote this 
epistle to the Church in that city. And in all fair- 
ness, these must be taken into account, in inter- 
preting Paul's words with reference to our country 
and our day. 



CHAPTEK lY. 

APOSTOLIC INJUNCTION. 

" Yerily I say unto yon, whatsoever ye shall bind 
" on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever 
" ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." 
—Matt. XYHL 18. 

§12. Paul directs the Chkistian Minister to teach 
THIS Doctrine respecting the Duties of Slaves 
AND Masters in the Church, and prohibits 
the teaching of any Doctrine at variance 

WITH it under most SOLEMN SANCTIONS. 

Pkoof.— 1 Tim. VL 3-5; Titus, 11. 9, 10, 15. 

1 Tim. YI. 3-5. 

" Let as many servants as are under the yoke 
" count their own masters worthy of all honor, that 
" the name of God and his doctrine be not blas- 

75 



76 THE CnRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

" phemed. 2. And they that have believing mas- 
" ters, let them not despise them, because they are 
" brethren ; but rather do them service, because 
" they are faithful and • beloved partakers of the 
" benefit. These things teach and exhort. 3. If 
'' any man teach otherwise, and consent not to whole- 
" some words, even the words of the Lord Jesus 
" Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to 
*' godliness, 4. He is proud, knowing nothing, but 
" doting about questions and strifes of words, where- 
" of Cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, 
" 5. Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, 
" and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is 
" godliness ; from such withdraw thyself." 

Paraphrase of ver. 4, 5. — ^These things teach in 
the Church and exhort thy hearers to take heed to 
them. (Yer. 2.) If any man teach otherwise, (ver. 4,) 
he is puffed up with pride though he knoweth 
nothing, having a morhid fondness for so-called 
2>hilosoj[)hical questions and logomachies ^{^) whence 
Cometh envy, strife, hlasphemies^i^) wicked suspi- 
cions, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds 
and destitute of the true doctrine of Christ Jesus, 
reckoning whatever produces most money is the best 
religion. From all such teachers publicly withdraw 
thyself (^) and acknowledge them not as the ministers 



APOSTOLIC INJUNCTION. YT 

of Christ, that all men may see that this doctrine has 
not the countenance of thy name and authority.* 

* " If any man teach otherwise, he is proud, (Gr. puffed up,) know- 
ing nothing, but doting (sick) about questions and strifes of words, 
whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse dis- 
putings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing 
that gain is godliness. From such withdraw thyself.'' — Whitby. 

" If any man teach otherwise, he is puffed up with pride, and 
knoweth nothing, either of the Jewish or Christian revelation, 
although he pretends to have great knowledge of both ; but is dis- 
tempered in his mind about idle questions and debates of words, 
which afford no foundation for such doctrine, but are the source of 
envy, contention, evil speakings, unjust suspicions that the truth is 
not sincerely maintained, keen disputings, carried on contrary to 
conscience, by men wholly corrupt in their minds and destitute of 
the true doctrines of the Gospel, who reckon whatever produces the 
most money is the best religion. From all such impious teachers 
withdraw thyself, and do not dispute with them." — McKnight. 

" If any man teach otherwise, whatever fair show of simplicity and 
humiUty he may affect, he is certainly proud, and whatever conceit he 
may have of his superior knowledge, he is one who knows nothing to, 
any good purpose ; but, like a man raving and delirious in a fever, he 
runs on, declaiming on idle questions and useless debates about words, 
from whence no good can be expected to arise, but, on the contrary, 
a great deal of mischief; envying of those more regarded than them- 
selves, contention with others who will not submissively yield to what 
such self-sufficient teachers dictate ; abusive language, which their 
intemperate zeal Heals round to all who offend them, and evil suspi- 
cions and obnoxious representations of the worthiest and most 
amiable characters ; angry debates of men whose minds are corrupt 
and averse from the truth, for which they pretend so eagerly to 



78 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

NoTES.(') — Having a mo rlid fondness for so-called 
philosophical questions and logomachies. '' JV^oson 
(doting) denotes ' having a morbid fondness for,' of 
which examples are adduced by Wets and in Rec. 
Sjn." — Bloonijleld. The sense in which the word 
zataseis (questions) is used here is determined by 
Paul's words '' j^^^'^'^^^se disputings" {j)aradiatriba\ 
subsequently used. On this word McKnight re- 
marks : — " A philosophical disputation, such as was 
held in the schools, was called diatriba ; but the 
addition of the preposition para converts the word 
into a bad meaning." And Bloomfield : — " The para 
denotes inanity, and the dia vehemence." The Greek 
word logoniachia (strifes of words) has no common 
English word exactly corresponding to it, since it is 
used to convey the idea of a strife loith mere words 
as well as about mere words. 

f) — Blasphemies. The Greek word llasphemia 
(railings) is generally used in the J^ew Testament of 
railing w^ords spoken against God, and we see no 
good reason for giving it a different meaning here, 
more especially as it is evidently used in this sense 
in the immediate context — " that the name of God 

plead ; while they seem to suppose that which promises the largest 
quantity of gain to be most worthy of pursuit, and would, if possible, 
varnish it over with the venerable name of godliness. Turn away 
therefore from such, and have no intimacy with them." — Doddri<lt/e. 



APOSTOLIC INJUNCTION. Y9 

and his doctrine be not blasphemed." — Yer. 1. Of 
the truth of Paul's descriptions, thus understanding 
this word, we have many illustrations at the present 
day. 

(') — From all such teachers puhlicly withclraio thy- 
self. For tlie use of a similar expression in this sense, 
see 1 Cor. Y. 11 : — " But now I have written unto 
you not to keep company, if any man that is called a 
brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, 
or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner, with 
such an one, no not to eat ;" understood by all com- 
mentators to mean that such an one should be excom- 
municated from the Church. 

Titus II. 9, 10, 15. 

"Exhort servants to be obedient to their own 
" masters, and to please them well in all things ; 
" not answering again : not purloining but shewing 
" all good fidelity : that they may adorn the doctrine 
" of God our Saviour in all things. 15. These things 
" speak, and exhort and rebuke with all authority. 
" Let no man despise thee." 



Paraphrase of ver. 15. — ^These things which I, as 
an Apostle of Jesus, have just given thee in charge, 
respecting the duties of the old and the young of both 



80 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 



I 



sexes, (ver. 1-G,) and of those wlio in God's provi- 
dence are in the condition of slaves {douloi\ (ver. 9, 
10,) speak openly and exhort all thy hearers to attend 
to them. And rebuke the Judaizing teachers who 
inculcate a different doctrine with all the authority ^ 
which belongs to thee as an Evangelist, and as such 
a spiritual ruler in the Church. And suffer no man 
to despise tliee, or disregard thy decisions in these 
matters."^ 

* " These things speak and exhort, and rebuke the opposers of 
this doctrine with all authority. Let no man despise thee, but use 
the censures of the Church, and deliver up to Satan those Jews who 
gainsay this doctrine." — Whithy. 

" These things inculcate as necessary to be believed, and exhort all 
who profess the Gospel to live suitably to them. And such as teach 
otherwise confute with all the authority which is due to truth, and to 
thee as a teacher commissioned of Christ. Let no one have reason 
to despise thee." — McKnight. 

" These things therefore speak boldly, and earnestly exhort all thy 
hearers to attend to them. And if they fail of regarding them in a 
proper manner, rebuke them w^ith all authority, as one that knows he 
has a divine commission to support him : and, upon the whole, let no 
man despise thee ; but endeavor to give them exhortations with that 
solemnity and dignity, and to enforce them by that wisdom and | 
sanctity of behavior, which may set thee above all danger of con- 
tempt." — Doddridge. 



APOSTOLIC INJUNCTION. 81 



Remaeks. 

Let the reader compare this account, given by 
Paul, with that given by Dr. Channing — and surely 
Dr. Channing cannot be thought to be a witness giv- 
ing testimony nnder pro-slavery prejudices — of the 
same class of teachers in this our day : 

'' The Abolitionists have done wrong, I believe ; 
nor is their wrong to be winked at, because done 
fanatically, or with good intentions : for how much 
mischief may be wrought with good designs ! They 
have fallen into the common error of enthusiasts, that 
of exaggerating their object, of feeling as if no evil 
existed but that which they opposed, and as if no guilt 
could be compared with that of countenancing and 
upholding it. The tone of their newspapers, as far 
as I have seen them, has often been fierce, bitter, and 
abusive. Another objection to their movement is, 
that they have sought to accomplish their object by 
a system of agitation , that is, by a system of afiili- 
ated societies, gathered, and held together, and ex- 
tended, by passionate eloquence. The Abolitionists 
might have formed an association ; but it should have 
been an elective one. Men of strong principles, judi- 
ciousness, sobriety, should have been carefully sought 
as members. Much good might have been accom- 
plished by the co-operation of such philanthropists. 

4* 



82 THE CHKISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

Instead of this, the Abolitionists sent forth their ora- 
tors, some of them transported with fiery zeal, to 
sound tlie alarm, against slavery throughout the land, 
to gather together young and old, pupils from schools, 
females hardly arrived at years of discretion, the 
ignorant, the excitable, the imj^etuous, and to organ- 
ize these into associations for the battle against op- 
pression. Yery unhappily they preached their doc- 
trine to the colored people, and formed these into 
societies. To this mixed and excitable multitude, 
minute, heart-rending, descriptions of slavery were 
given in the piercing tones of passion ; and slave- 
holders were held up as monsters of cruelty and 
crime. The Abolitionist, indeed, proposed to con- 
vert the slave-holders; and for this end, he ap- 
proached them with vituperation, and exhausted on 
them the vocabulary of abuse ! And he has reaped 
as he sowed." — Quoted from, Dr. Hodge's Essays^ 
pp. 47Y, 478. 

Dr. Barnes ! ! ! in his " Scriptural Yiews of 
Slavery," p. 267, quotes and endorses this descrip- 
tion of Dr. Channing. 

§ 13. "Blasphemies." 

Among the consequences of such '* questions and 
strifes of words" as characterized the anti-slavery 



APOSTOLIC INJUNCTION. 83 

preaching in Paul's day, he reckons blasphemies. 
The same is true of it in our day. As an instance, 
take the following : " Down with your Bible ! down 
with your political parties ! down with your trod that 
sanctions slavery ! The God of Moses Stuart, the 
Andover God, the God of Wm. H. Kogers, which is 
worshipped in the Winter St. Church, is a monster, 
composed of oppression, fraud, injustice, pollution, 
and every crime in the shape of slavery. To such a 
God I am an Atheist." — 3fr. Wright^ in his Speech 
before the Anti-Slavevy Society in Boston^ May^ 1850. 
To those familiar with the anti-slavery literature of 
the day, especially the speeches delivered at anniver- 
sary meetings, there is no need that I should remark, 
that blasphemy is one of the characteristic features 
of it. 

And in connection with such open and positive 
blasphemy, as that quoted above, let the reader take 
an extract or two from the late writings of Dr. 
Barnes : 

" Is it to be held that the manufacture and sale of 
ardent spirits will have something to do with the 
progress of the Gospel and the salvation of men, and 
slavery nothing ? That the vending of a few lottery- 
tickets is a matter of sufficient importance to claim 
the attention of the ministers of religion, and tliis 
not? That the amusements of the ball-room, the 



84 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

theatre, and the opera, should engage the earnest 
prayers and exliortations of the ministers of religion, 
and tliat the iact that three millions of human beings 
are held under such a system, can have no claim on 
the attention of the ministers of Christ? Shall a 
horse-race, a bull-fight, or even a duel^ be deemed of 
sufficient moment to awaken the indio-nation and stir 
tlie soul of a minister of Christ, and this enormous 
system of injustice and wrong have nothing to awa- 
ken his sympathy, and to enkindle his zeal ? Is -the 
system of caste in India, an evil greater than Ameri- 
can slavery ? Is the voluntary hurning of a few 
widoics on the funeral pile, either as an obstruction 
to the Gospel or as actual wrong^ to be compared 
with this system ? Is the swinging on hooks or the 
l)ainful torture of the body in Hindoo devotion an 
obstruction to the progress of the Gospel, at all to be 
compared in extent or in enormity with American 
slavery." — Dr. Barnes^ Church and Slavery, pp. 
161-2. 

" With what consistency, it might be asked, can a 
nation engage in the work of missions to the heathen, 
which systematically and on principle holds three 
millions of human beings in slavery ? What is the 
kind of religion which such a people would seek to 
introduce among the heathen, and to substitute for 
the forms of superstition and idolatry which prevail 



APOSTOLIC INJUNCTION. 85 

there ? And what would be the advantage of substi- 
tuting a religion where such views and purposes are 
avowed, for those systems which now actually pre- 
vail in heathen lands ?" — Church and Slavery^ pp. 
170, 1. 

"We must either give up the point that the New 
Testament defends slavery, or we must give up a 
very large — and an increasingly large — portion of the 
people of this land to infidelity ; for they neither can, 
nor will, nor ought, to be convinced that a book 
which sanctions slavery is from God. I believe that 
this must, and should he so ; and that there are great 
principles in our nature, as God has made us, which 
can never be set aside by any authority of a pre- 
tended revelation ; and that if a book professing to 
be a revelation from God, by any fair interpretation 
defended slavery, or placed it on the same basis as 
the relation of husband and wife, parent and child, 
guardian and ward, such a book neither ought to be, 
nor could be received by mankind as a divine revela- 
tion." — The Church and Slavery, p. 193. 

Dr. Barnes may be able to show, that this language 
of his does not amount to positive blasphemy ; but we 
ask — using one of his own favorite expressions — what 
would " a proper development of it " be ? 



86 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 



§ 14. " So-called Philosophical Questions and 
logomachles. - 



1. ''Mere Property, 



»* 



" Property is the right of possession and use, and 
must of necessity vary according to the nature of the 
objects to which it attaches. A man has property in 
his wife, in his children, in his domestic animals, in 
his fields, and in his forests. That is, he has the 
right to the possession and use of these several ob- 
jects according to their nature. He has no more 

* " So long as the slave is regarded as a ' chattel,' or a mere piece 
of 'property,' like a horse, so long men endeavor to content them- 
selves with the feeUng that he may be held in bondage." — Barnes' 
Notes on Uph. VI. 9. 

*' What is the essential element of the system ? "What distin- 
guishes it from all other relations ? This question can now be an- 
swered by the single reply, that it is property in a human being. 
He (the master) regards him (the slave) as his own property in the 
same sense as he regards anything else as his property." — Scriptural 
Views of Slavery, p. 47. 

" According to the system, their (slaves') bodies are not their own, 
their souls, so far as they can be made to subserve the interests of 
the master, are not their own," — The Church and Slavery, p. 179. 

" He (the master) sets the slave up at auction, not his services ; he 
disposes of the slave in his will, by name, not of his unexpired term 
of service. " — Scriptural Vieivs^ p. 55. 



APOSTOLIC INJUNCTION. 87 

right to use a brute as a log of wood, in virtue of the 
right of property, than he has the right to use a man 
as a brute. There are general principles of rectitude 
obligatory on all men, which require them to treat 
all the creatures of God according to the nature 
which he has given them. The man who should burn 
his horse because he was his property, would find no 
justification in that plea either before God or man. 
When, therefore, it is said that one man is the pro- 
perty of another, it can only mean that the one has 
a right to use the other as a man, but not as a brute 
or as a thing. He has no right to treat him as he may 
lawfully treat his ox or a tree. He can convert his 
person to no use to which a human being may not, 
by the laws of God and nature, be properly applied. 
When the idea of property comes to be analyzed, it 
is found to be nothins: more than a claim to service 
either for life or for a term of years. This claim is 
transferable, and is of the nature of property, and is 
consequently liable for the debts of the owner, and 
subject to his disposal by will or otherwise." — Dr. 
Hodge's Essays on Reviews^ p. 499. 

This view of the nature of the property which a 
master has in his slave, is the view which all ethical 
writers of any reputation, whether Christian or not^ 
have taken ; and Dr. Barnes had before him this very 
Essay of Dr. Hodge, as is evident from his frequent 



88 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTEINP: CF SLAVERY. 

quotations from it, when he penned such sentences as 
those quoted in the note. On what ground, on what 
authority, does he set it aside ? On none, that we 
can discover, except that presented in liis words — 
" He sets the slave up at auction — he disposes of the 
slave in his will, hy nameP 

In Matt. XX. 6, 7, we read : — " About the eleventh 
hour he went out and found others standing idle in 
the marhet-^lace^ and said unto them. Why stand ye 
here all the day idle ? They say unto him, Because 
no man hath hired usP These men exposed them- 
selves, bodily, for hire in the market-place ; and their 
language is " hired usP Shall we hence infer, that 
when the ''owner of the vineyard" hired them he 
acquired a temporary property " in their bodies and 
their souls," and that they meant to transfer such 
property to him? If Dr. B. wished to hire a huuse- 
servant for a month or a year, would he not expect 
that house-servant to show himself bodily to him?. 
not because he wished to acquire a temporary right 
of property in his body, but because thus only could 
he judge of his physical ability to perform the service 
for which he wished him. And when he had hired 
him, would he not say, I have hired such an one — 
naming him — for a month or a year, as the case 
might be ? Such is the language always used in 
common life ; and although it may not be philosophi- 



APOSTOLIC INJUNCTION. 89 

callj a'^.curate, none but tlie willfully perverse can 
misunda'stand it. 



" A chattel, a thing. 



"* 



" Slaves shall be claimed, held, taken, reputed and 
adjudged in law to be chattels personal in the hands 
of their owners and possessors," is the language of 
the law in South Carolina. And hence it is inferred 
that that law does not regard a slave as a human 
being, but as a " thiiig.'''' 

K this be a correct view of the case, how comes it 

* " It follows from this that a slave is not to be regarded as a 
' chattel ' or a ' thing,' or as ' property.' He is a man, a redeemed 
man, an immortal man. He is one for whom Christ died. But 
Christ did not die for ' chattels.' and ' things.' " — Barries' JSfotes on 
£ph. VI. 9. 

'• It would be impossible for Philemon to comply with the wishes 
breathed forth in this letter, and meet exactly the desires of Paul in 
the case, and yet regard him (Oaesimus) as property, as a * chattel,' 
as a ' thing.' " — Barnes' Notes, Pldlemon. 

" This system (I speak of the system, not of the feelings of many 
who are connected with it) treats man not as man, and not as capable 
of redemption, but as a 'chattel,' as a 'thing;' this system does at 
least as much in this country to hinder the progress of the Gospel 
of Christ, and involves as many violations of the law of God, as 
either intemperance, gaming, lotteries, sabbath-breaking, skepticism, 
infidehty, if not as much as all combined.'* — Church and Slavery, 
p. 167. 



90 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

that tlie laws of Soutli Carolina make the killing of 
a slave, murder; and the forcible violation of the 
person of a female slave, rajDC? Can a '"thing" — a 
bale of cotton, for examj)le — be murdered ? 

"What is a '' chattel f " " In the grand costumier 
of l!Tormandj," writes Blackstons:, " a chattel is 
described as a mere movable, buc at the same time 
it is set in opposition to a fief or feud ; so that not 
only goods, but whatever was not a feud, w^ere 
accounted chattels. And ic is in this latter, more 
extended, negative sense that our law adopts it ; the 
idea of goods or movables only being not sufiicientlj 
comprehensive to take in everything that the law 
considers as a chattel interest. For since, as the 
commentators on the costumier observe, there are 
two requisites to make a fief or heritage — duration as 
to time and immobility with regard to place ; what- 
ever wants either of these qualities, is not, according 
to the K'ormans, a lieritage or fief ; or, according to 
us, is not a real estate ; the consequence of which in 
both laws is, that it must be a i)ersonal estate or 
chattel." — Blaclcstone's Goimnentary^ book ii. ch. 24. 

"When then the civil code of South Carolina — for it 
is the civil and not the criminal code that is quoted — 
declares that " slaves shall be claimed, held, taken, 
reputed, and adjudged in law to be chattels per- 
sonal," the declaration in eftect is, simply that 



APOSTOLIC INJUNCTION. 91 

they are not to be held as real estate : that the pro- 
perty which the master has in the slave — without at 
all determining the extent of that property — shall be 
governed by the laws respecting transfer and trans- 
mission, which apply to personal estate. The interest 
which a master has in his apprentice, under the laws 
of Pennsylvania, or which Dr. Barnes may have in a 
minor, bound as a servant to him for a term of years, 
is as truly a chattel interest, in the law sense of that 
term, as the interest which the master has in his 
slave. And this fact no more degrades the person, 
in the account of the law, from the rank of an immor- 
tal being, for whom Christ died, in the one case than 
in the other. And when Dr. Barnes declares, 
" Christ did not die for chattels," he cuts off the 
apprentice and the bound servant along with the 
slave — -" the ])Oor^'^ to whom Christ left especial 
direction that his Gospel should be preached — from 
all the precious hopes which are garnered up in that 
Gospel. 

3. '^Unrequited Zc^Sor.*" 
In the aspect in which this objection contemplates 

* '' One of the elementary principles of it (slaver}') is, that there 
must be ' unrequited labor ;' that is, the slave must earn as much 
more than he receives as will do his part in maintaining the roaster in 



92 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

slavery, the question is properly one respecting the 
relations of '' capital and labor," and in all fairness 
should be so treated. 

Let us state it as a question of capital and labor, 
taking the case of a slave on one of our southern 
plantations, and it will stand thus : — The capitalist 
(i. e. the master) furnishes the land, live-stock, seed, 
and agricultural implements. The laborer (i. e. the 
slave) furnishes his own labor in the use of this capi- 
tal. The master, in return for his capital used, and 
his skill in superintending and conducting the affairs 
of the plantation, receives the maintenance of himself 
and family — perhaps something more. The slave, in 
return for his labor, receives as wages, shelter, food, 
and clothing for himself and his young children, as 
yet dependent on him, his maintenance and medical 
attendance in sickness, and a comfortable provision 
for his old age. In what does this case differ from 
that of the northern capitalist, the owner of a cotton- 
idleness, for it is of the very essence of the system, that he is to be 
maintained in indolence by the slaves which he owns." — Barnes' 
Notes, Col. IV. 1. 

" Slavery is, of necessity, a system of unrequited toil. Tlie master 
expects to make something by the slave ; that is, he expects to secure 
more from the labor of the slave than he returns to him," — " Appro- 
priating to ourselves entirely the avails of the labor of another man, 
is an essential to the system." — Script. Views of Slavcri/, pp. 52, 35-t. 



APOSTOLIC INJUNCTION. 93 

factory, for example, and the laborer he employs, 
excepting that in one case the wages are paid " in 
kind," in the other in money. 

But " the master (i. e. the Southern capitalist) 
expects to make something by the slave " (i. e. the 
laborer). And does not the lN"orthern capitalist ex- 
pect to make something by the laborers he employs ? 
Are cotton-factories benevolent institutions, for the 
benefit of the poor ? But " the master is maintained 
in idleness ;" i. e. he does not take hold of the plough- 
handle and the hoe, as the slave does. And does 
the owner of a cotton-factory labor as an operative 
within its w^alls ? 

But, says Dr. B., " it is vain to say that the food, 
the raiment, and the cottage of the slave are any 
equivalent for his services, or that the deficiency of 
these is made up by the implied pledge of the master 
that he w^ill furnish him with medicine when sick, 
and that he will take care of him when he is, old." 
We would inform Dr. B., by the way, that these are 
not matters secured by " the implied pledge of the 
master," but by ''^ the righteous slave-laws'''^ of the 
Southern States ; and if the master fails to provide 
them, the proper authorities will do it, and the mas- 
ter will have to pay for it. " J^one of these things 
are such an equivalent for his services that a free- 
man would be willing to contract for them by selling 



94 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

himself into slavery ; tliey are not what a freeman 
can secure by voluntary labor." — Script Views, p. 52. 

If by freeman, we understand the free laborer in 
our ISTorthern States, we reply, — the wages of the 
slave are not as much as the freeman can secnre. 
Intelligence and industry are, and ought to be, taken 
into account in determining a laborer's wages. And 
in these particulars the American laborer is far in 
advance of the African, but a few generations re- 
moved, as the latter is, from the most degraded, 
debasing barbarism. But compare the case of the 
slave with that of the free laborer in Europe, and the 
wages of the former are better than those of the 
latter ; as is proven by the fact, that one out of every 
five, even in Great Britain, of these free laborers, is 
compelled to spend a part of his days in the poor- 
house. That is, he does not receive for his labor 
what amounts to a support for himself and family 
while able to labor, and a comfortable provision in 
sickness and old age. 

Even in our country, taking into account tlie 
amount and quality of the labor, the slave must 
receive more wages than, the freeman ; else how can 
it be that slave-labor is less profitable to the capi- 
talist than free-labor? This allegation, so often 
repeated by anti-slavery writers, (see Scrijpt. Vieios, 
pp. 2:1:, 25,) if it mean anything, must mean that the 



APOSTOLIC INJUNCTION. 95 

capitalist pays, and tlie laborer receives, more wages 
for a given amount of labor performed under a sys- 
tem of slavery than under one of free-labor. 

4. ''Theft:''' 

Anti-slavery writers are accustomed to speak of 
slave-holders as " men-stealers," as guilty of " theft ;" 
not as the actual thieves, but as the receivers of 
stolen goods. 

Let us take Dr. Barnes' illustration of the case by 
that of " a stolen horse,'' and admit for the present 

* " None become slaves voluntarily, and consequently the whole 
process of making slaves partakes of the nature of theft of the worst 
kind. What guilt is like that of stealing a man's children or wife, or 
his father or mother? The guilt of man-stealing is incurred essen- 
tially by those who purchase those who are thus stolen, as the put' 
chaser of a stolen horse, knowing it to be so, participates in the crime. 
A measure of that criminaUty also adheres to all who own slaves, and 
thus maintain the system, for it is a system known to have been ori- 
ginated by theft." — Barnes'' Notes on 1 Tim. I. 10. 

In his Scrij)tural Vieios of Slavery, Dr. B. illustrates the case by 
that of Napoleon's plundering the Itahan churches and monasteries 
of their choicest paintings, remarking : " It is clear that no lapse of 
time, no amount of legal enactment, and no number of transfers of 
the property, by sale or bequest, could ever convey a moral right to 
those works of art. Somewhere, in spite of all these forms of law, the 
wrong is perpetuated and extended, nor can it ever be obliterated but 
by a restoration." — Pp. 356, SSY. 



96 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTBINE OF SLAVERY. 

what lie doubtless believes, though we do not, that 
the illustration is a fair one. The case as stated bj 
Dr. B. is not fully stated. That we may deal fairly 
by all the parties concerned in the transaction, we 
must go back to the beginning, and ask first of all, 
Who stole the horse ? To this the only true reply is, 
The ITorthern man ; for nothing is more certain than 
that the inhabitants of the ISTorthern States, and not 
the people of the South, were the persons immedi- 
ately employed in the African slave-trade at the time 
that most of the original stock of slaves was brought 
into this countrj^,* and that Southern men purchased 
from them. At the time, neither party thought it 
was a theft. But since then, JST. has found out that 
such was the nature of the act. If now, he would 
honestly repair the wrong done, let him come to S. 
with the money that S. paid him, and returning it, 
say, — I have found out that the horse I sold you was 
a stolen horse, I therefore bring you back the money 
you paid me for him. Return me the horse, that I 
may restore him to his rightful owner. Is not this 
what would be required by the law of God as well as 

* *' They (i. e. the Southern people) remember with little gratitude 
the laws and cupidity of the Mother country by which it (slavery) 
was imposed on them, and the Northern ships by which the inhabit- 
ants of Africa were conveyed to their shores." — Barnes' Scrip. 
Views ^ p. 9. 



APOSTOLIC INJUNCTION, 97 

of man in the case as stated by Dr. B. ? But sup- 
pose that, instead of this, !N". comes, and not offering 
to refund any part of the price which S. paid him for 
the horse, with sanctimonious visage, says : S., you 
are a thief; that horse you have is a stolen horse; 
and you'll be a thief as long as you keep him. Is not 
this just the case in which our Lord puts into the 
mouth of a respondent the reply, "Thou hypocrite, 
first cast out the beam out of thine own eye ; and 
then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out 
of thy brother's eye." 

Does Dr. B. say : The present generation of 
Northern men did not receive the price^ and they 
have it not, and therefore cannot be rightfully called 
upon to return it ? We reply : Neither did the pre- 
sent generation of Southern men receive the stolen 
horse^ and they have him not, (he died years ago,) 
and therefore cannot be rightfully called upon to 
return him. If the stolen horse " is somewhere," so 
is the money paid for him " somewhere." At this 
day, that money is just as easily to be found in the 
shipping and manufacturing establishments of New 
England, as the stolen horse is upon a Southern 
plantation. 

Let us take another case. Most of the land in New 
England — and the same is true in the Southern States 
— was procured from its original possessors, the In- 



98 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

dians, by fraud or violence. And hence the original 
title — original, as the land is now held — is a title 
which, at this day, all would regard as an unrighteous 
one. Does this vitiate the title of the present owner, 
who has purchased or inherited it under the peaceful 
operation of law ? Is A^ a robber as truly as if he 
had wrested the land from the Indian on yesterday ? 
The truth is, all such reasoning as this is delusive. 
(See Foley's Moral Phil.^ book iii. ch. 2, 3, 4, for a 
more full examination of the subject.) The distinc- 
tion between man-stealing (i. e. kidnapping) and 
slave-holding made in the laws of our country — and 
just the same distinction was made in the laws of 
Moses, and recognized in the ]^ew Testament (see 
§ 5) — is a proper distinction, and one which no sound 
writer has ever discarded. 



5. Exclusion from the Puljpit.'^ 
Dr. Barnes complains, and the same is true of other 

* " Now, what the spirit of the age and the spirit of the Gospel, as 
I understand it, demands, is not that the subject of slavery should 
have any undue prominence in these discussions, nor that it should be 
forced into the publications of the Tract Society and the Sunday 
School Union, nor that it should occupy the sole place in the pulpit ; 
but that it should be treated just as all other acknowledged evils and 
wrongs are : as contrary to the Gospel of Christ, as preventing the 



APOSTOLIC INJUNCTION. 99 

anti-slavery writers, that he is not permitted to preach 
his doctrine on the subject of slavery, in the pulpits 
at the South, or by means of the press, through the 
agency of the American Tract Society and the Ameri- 
can Sunday School Union ; and represents this as a 
willful withholding of God's truth for the purpose of 
conciliating the favor of the Southern slave-holder. 

This is all a misrepresentation of the case from 
beginning to end. The ministers of Christ at the 
South are accustomed to introduce the subject of 
slavery into the pulpit, and teach all that the Bible 
teaches on the subject, just as they introduce 
any other subject which Clirist has given them 
in charge. And I will add, after an experience 
of twenty years, there is no subject on which a 
Southern congregation listens more respectfully to 
God's truth, as taught from the pulpit, than on this 
very one. 

Does Dr. B. ask : Would you allow me to occupy 

salvation of men, as a violation of the spirit of the Gospel, and as an 
evil not to be perpetuated, but to be removed. For one, I am 
weary — and I am sure that in this I speak the sentiments of many 
thousands of others— of the perpetual deference shown to the holders 
of slaves in the pulpit and in the religious literature of the land. I 
am weary of the care taken, more than in other cases of wrong, to 
conciliate their favor and to avoid giving them offence." — Church and 
Slavery^ pp. 158, 159. 



100 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY, 

jour pulpit to preacli on slavery ? My prompt reply 
is : ]S'o, sir ; never. As a pastor of a Cliristian Churcli, 
I am responsible to God and to man, that nothing but 
God's truth shall be preached from its pulpit. I have 
your creed on slavery, in such passages from your 
published works as these : '' AYe cannot answer the 
argument for infidelity drawn from this source, if we 
admit that slavery is authorized by the Bible, any 
more than we could answer the argument if the Bible, 
by a fair interpretation, justified polygamy, theft, 
highway robbery, or piracy." — " I believe, that if a 
book, professing to be a revelation from God, by any 
fair interpretation, defended slavery, or placed it on 
the same basis as the relation of husband and wife, 
parent and child, (juardian and ward, such a book 
neither ought to be, nor could be, received by man- 
kind as a divine revelation." — Church and Slavery^ 
pp. 188, 193. And I say to you, sir, on the subject 
of slavery you are, in my view, to God's truih, 
infidel. You cannot enter my pulpit to preach on 
slavery, for the same reason that the Free-lover can- 
not enter it to preach on marriage, or the Socialist to 
preach on the relation of parent and child. But any 
minister of Christ who will come and preach just 
what the Bible teaches, and all that the Bible teaches, 
will be welcome, not to my pulpit only, but to any 
pulpit in the slave-holding States, to preach on the 



APOSTOLIC INJUNCTION. 101 

subject of slavery, or any other subject on which 
Christ has given instructions to his Church. 

All this talk of " orators transported with fiery 
zeal" (Channing) about " mere property" — " A chat- 
tel, a thing"—" Unrequited labor"—" Theft"—" Ex- 
clusion from the pulpit," is fitly described by Paul 
as mere " logomachy," a w^ordy dispute about mere 
words — words which the "orator" does not under- 
stand, and, in many an instance, does not because he 
will not. 



CIIAPTEE Y. 

NATURE A^D ORIGIN OF SLAVERY. 

In our examination of what the !N"ew Testament 
teaches on the subject of Slavery, we have found— 
1. That slave-holding does not appear in any cata- 
logue of sins or " offences " given us by inspired men, 
(§ 2-5.) 2: That the Apostles received slave-holders 
into the Christian Church, and continued them 
therein, without giving any intimation, either at the 
time of their reception or afterwards, that slave-hold- 
ing was a sin or an " offence," (§ 6, 7.) 3. That Paul 
sent back a fugitive-slave to his own master again, 
and assigned as his reason for so doing, that master's 
right to the services of his slave, (§ 8.) 4. That the 
Apostles frequently enjoin the relative duties of 
master and slave, and enforce these injunctions upon 
both alike, as Christian men by Christian motives ; 
uniformly treating certain evils which they sought 
to correct, as incidental evils, and not " part and par- 

102 



NATURE AND ORI&IN OF SLAVERY. 103 

eel " of slavery itself, (§ 9.) 5. That Paul treated the 
distinctions which slavery creates as matters of very 
little importance, in so far as the interests of the 
Christian life are concerned, (§11.) 6. That he de- 
clares that this, his doctrine respecting the relation 
of slave and master, is wholesome doctrine, and ac- 
cording to godliness, and the doctrine of the Lord 
Jesus Christ, (§ 10.) 7. And directs Christian minis- 
ters to teach it in the Church, and prohibits the 
teaching of any doctrine at variance with it under 
the most solemn sanctions known to the Church, 

(§ 12.) 

All this is utterly irreconcilable with the idea that 
slave-holding is to be regarded as a sin in the sight 
of God, or accounted an offence by his Church ; nor 
is it possible to maintain the opposite doctrine, with- 
out either rejecting the Word of God as our ''only 
rule of faith and obedience," {Larger Catechising or 
adopting principles and methods of interpretation 
which will destroy all certainty in human language. 

It becomes, then, a matter of great practical impor- 
tance to him who receives the Bible as the Word of 
God — especially in view of tlie conflict of opinion in 
the Christian Church in our day — to answer correctly 
the question. What is the slave-holding which the 
Apostles teach is not a sin before God, or an " offence " 
in his Church. 



10-i THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 



§ 15. Inspired Definition of Slavery, 

The Clmrcli is the School of Christ j and the Bible 
is the authoritative text-book appoiated to be taught 
in that schooL If, in the statement of a doctrine 
taught in any text-book, doubtful terms are used, we 
must go to the text-book itself for a definition of those 
terms. Tliis is nothing more than in common fair- 
ness any author might demand. 

The Church is the Kingdom of Christ ; and the 
Bible is the one only law-book.of that kingdom. In 
the case of any other system of laws, if a certain re- 
lation were declared to be a lawful one, we would go 
to the code of laws in which such declaration was 
made, and not to that of some other country or some 
other age, for a definition of that j-elation. Any 
other course than this, would be accounted simply 
absurd. 

Let us, then, adopt this course in the case before 
us. The Bible, the authoritative text-book in the 
School of Christ, the code of laws in the Kingdom of 
Christ, teaches that slave-holding is not a sin. To 
the Bible, then, let us go, and not to the writings of 
Aristotle, or to the Civil Law of Rome, or to the laws 
of South Carolina, for a definition of slavery. In the 
Bible we will not find a definition of the term, drawn 



NATUEE AND ORIGEST OF SLAYEET. 105 

out in strictly logical form — for tliis is not the way 
in which the Bible ordinarily presents truth : it con- 
tains no strictly logical statement of many of the 
most important doctrines of our holy religion — but 
we will find a definition, in substance, and this so 
presented as to leave the ingenuous inquirer in no 
doubt respecting the matter. 

Slayeey, in the Bible sense of the term, is a con- 

* DITION OF MUTUAL EIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS. ThE 
EIGHTS OF THE MASTEE, AND THE COEEESPONDING OBLIGA- 
TIONS OF THE SLAVE, AEE TO OBEDIENCE AND SEEVICE. 

" Servants, be obedient to them that are your mas- 
" ters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, 
" in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ ; not with 
" eje-service, as men-pleasers ; but as the servants of 
'' Christ, doing the will of God from the heart ; with 
" good will doing set'vice, as to the Lord and not to 
" men ; knowing that whatsoever good thing any 
" man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, 
" whether he be bond or free." — £ph. VL 5-8. See 
also Col. TIL 22-25 ; Titus IL 9, 10. 

The Rights of the Slave and the coeeespondinq 
Obligations of the Mastee aee, to " that which is 
just and equal." 

" Masters, give unto your servants that which is 
'^ just and equal, knowing that ye also have a master 
" in heaven."— a>Z. lY 1. See also Epli. VL 9. 

5* 



106 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

For an exposition of these words, see § 9. 

In confirmation of this view, let the reader turn to 
Gal. lY. 1, 2, where Paul makes use of the condition 
of a slave to illustrate that of a child during his 
minority, and thus of the Church, under the old dis- 
pensation. 

" Kow, this 1 say, that the. heir, as long as he is a 
" child, differeth nothing from a servant, {doidos^ a 
" slave,) though he be lord of all, but is under tu- 
" tors " {ejpitro])08^ a guardian, who, standing in the 
place of a parent, is entitled to the obedience due a 
parent,) " and governors," {pikonomos^ " an overseer : 
one who had authority over the servants of a family, 
to assign their tasks and portions." — Robinson^ s N. T. 
Lex.) " until the time appointed of the father." 

Besides what may be considered, strictly speaking, 
essential to slavery, there are certain other particu- 
lars, so generally attaching to it, that they may be 
treated — as they are by the sacred writers — as " part 
and parcel" of the institution itself. Of this nature 
are the following, viz. ; 

1. Slavery is a relation formed without the consent 
of ihe'slave being first obtained. — ^This is not essential 
to slavery ; since in the law of Moses provision is 
made for a man's voluntanly assuming the condition of 
a slave, (Ex. XXI. 5, 6^) and analogous provisions 
exist in the laws of many slave-holding states. 



NATURE AND ORIGIN OF SLAVERY. 107 

2. It is a relation for life, — Moses' law provided 
that an Israelite, who, in any way had become a 
slave, should regain his freedom at the end of seven 
years, or at the jubilee at the farthest, (Ex. XXI. 2 ;) 
and similar laws have existed in other countries ; so 
that slavery may exist without life-long duration. 

3. It is a relation which cannot he lawfully termi- 
nated without the consent of loth the jparties. — In 
general, the consent of the slave is presumed : and 
yet were not the consent of both parties recpired, 
cases of great injustice might arise — for example : By 
the master's manumitting a slave in his old age, for 
the purpose of getting rid of his obligation to sup- 
port him. 

The rights and obligations already stated, and these 
three particulars, are all that the Apostles treat as 
properly belo^iging to slavery itself. "Whatever else 
may attach to it in any particular country or age, 
they treat as incidental. And the distinction between 
that which is ^^ jpart and jparceV of slavery itself and 
that which is merely incidental^ and therefore may 
vary or disapper, while slavery itself remains, is a dis- 
tinction which lies at the very foundation of the 
Christian method of dealing with it, as set forth in 
the life and writings of Christ and his Apostles. 

It is a distinction, too, which has always been re- 
cognized by ethical writers of reputation. Thus, 



108 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

Pnfiendorf s definition of slavery is in these words : 
" The full sum and notion, then, oijpersonal servitude^ 
amounts to this : that a man, for the sake of food and 
other necessaries of life, shall lie under an obligation 
to perpetual labor ; which, if taken in its true natural 
extent, extracted from the barbarous cruelty of some 
masters, and the unreasonable rigor of some laws, 
doth not imply an extravagant degree of hardship 
and severity. For that perpetual obligation is well 
•requited by a perpetual certainty of maintenance, for 
which those who work for hire are often at a loss, 
either through want of business or willful idleness." — 
Law of Nature and Nations, B. YI., Ch. III., § 10. 

And Dr. Hodge writes : " The grand mistake, as 
we apprehend, of those who maintain that slave- 
holding is itself a crime, is, that they do not discrimi- 
nate between slave-holding in itself considered, and 
its accessories at any particular time or place. They 
have a confused idea of chains and whips, of degra- 
dation and misery, of ignorance and vice, and to this 
complex conception they apply the name slavery, 
and denounce it as the aggregate of all moral and 
physical evil. Do such persons suppose that slavery 
as it existed in the family of Abraham, was such as 
their imagination thus pictures to themselves ? 
Might not that patriarch have had men purchased 
with his silver, who were well clothed, well instructed, 



NATURE AND ORIGIN OF SLAVERY. 109 

well conpensated for tlieir labor, and in all respects 
treated with parental kindness? ^Neither inadequate 
remuneration, physical discomfort, intellectual igno- 
rance, nor moral degradation, is essential to the con- 
dition of a slave. Yet, if all these ideas are removed 
from the commonly received notions of slavery, how 
little will remain. All the ideas which necessarily 
enter into the definition of slavery, are deprivation of 
personal liberty, obligation to service at the discretion 
of another, and the transferable character of the 
authority and claim of service of the master." — 
Hodge's Essays and Beviews^ pp. 483, 484. 

Either of these definitions would answer our pur- 
pose, had we no other design than that of defending 
the doctrine of Scripture, that slave-holding is neither 
a sin nor an " offence ;"* but neither of them is as 

* In commenting upon Dr. Hodge's view of the nature of the pro- 
perty which a master has in his slave, (see § 14, 1,) Dr. Barnes wiutes : 
" According to this view, slavery is comparatively a harmless thing — 
and no one should regard slavery as essentially an undesirable condi- 
tion of society, and still less as having any thing in it that is morally 
wrong.^^ And referring to Abraham's slaves, he writes: "They may 
have been purchased from those who had taken them as captives in 
war, and the purchase may have been regarded by themselves as a 
species of redemption, or a most desirable rescue from the fate which 
usually attends such captives — perchance from death. The property 
which it was understood that he had in them may have been merely 
property in their titne, and not in their persons. Or the purchase 



110 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

perfect a definition as that given by Paul ; their defi- 
ciency consisting in this, that whilst stating distinctly 
and correctly the obligations of the slave, they do not 
take as. explicit notice of the corresponding obliga- 
tions of the master ; and the latter enter as truly into 
the idea of slavery as the former do. 



§ 16. Origin of Slavery. 

The Scriptural theory respecting the origin of 
Slavery, may be stated, in brief, thus : — The efi'ect of 
sin, i. e., disobedience to God's laws, upon both indi- 
viduals and nations, is degradation. A people under 
this influence, continued through many generations, 
sink so low in the scale of intelligence and morality 
as to become incapable of safe and righteous self- 
government. When, by God's appointment, slavery 
comes upon them — an appointment at once punitive 
and remedial ; a punishment for sin actually com- 
mitted, and at the same time a means of saving the 
sinning people from that utter extermination which 
must otherwise be their doom, and gradually raising 
them from the degradation into which they have 
sunk. 

raay have in fact amounted to every thing that is desirable in eman- 
cipation." — Script. Views of Slavery^ pp. 40, 75. 



NATURE AND ORIGIN OF SLAVERY. Ill 

It was in consequence of sin, in part actually com- 
mitted, and yet more foreseen in the future, that the 
first slave sentence of which we have any record was 
pronounced by Koah upon Canaan and his descend- 
ants — " Cursed be Canaan ; a servant of servants 
shall he be to his brethren."— Gen. IX. 25.^ By the 
mouth of Moses, God threatens his people Israel, in 
case of their disobedience, with a long series of judg- 
ments, terminating in slavery, — " And the Lord shall 
bring thee into Egypt again with ships, by the way 
whereof I spake unto thee. Thou shalt see it no more 
again : and there shall ye be sold for hond-men and 
hond-icomen^ and no man shall buy you." — Dent. 
XXYIII. 68. And Solomon declares, in general 
terms, " The fool (i. e., the wicked) shall be the ser- 
vant (ehed. the slave) of the wise in heart." — Prov. 
XL 29. 

This doctrine of God's word is strikingly illustrated 



* The connection between sin and slavery appears in connection 
with the record of man's first sin — " Therefore the Lord sent him 
yorth from the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was 
taken." — Gen. III. 23." " To till,^'' in the Hebrew, is the word that 
means a slave, but is here used as a verb, and literally means " to 
slave the ground;'' and is used to show, not that Adam had become 
the slave of any other person, but a slave to his own necessities, and 
that the labor required was the labor of a slaLxe^— Fletcher's Studies 
on Slavery^ p. 434. 



112 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

in his providence. All men are sinners, and hence 
all are subject to what Fletcher well calls " the first 
degree- of slavery," i. e., slavery to their physical 
wants and necessities — " in the sweat of their face 
must they eat their bread." Where sin has been 
persisted in for a time by any people, then comes the 
second degree of slavery, i. e., subjection to despotic 
government. The deep foundations of despotism .in 
Europe are laid in the degradation of the people. 
Overturn those despotisms a thousand times, and you 
cannot make the people free, unless you can first raise 
them in the scale of intellectual and moral being. 
Where sin has been persisted in for many generations, 
and a people have become deeply degraded, then 
comes the third degree oi^\BNQYj^ i. e., personal slavery. 
Uniformly the people who have been reduced to sla- 
very, have been those degraded by the long-continued 
operation of sin in just this way.* "The world never 

* " We may everywhere notice that some among the family of 
man have become so poisoned with sin, so destroyed, that they are 
no longer safe guardians to themselves, even under the general inter- 
dict, that animal want enslaves us all. That for such God provides as 
the general safety may seem to require. That, in the history of man, 
some races have become so deteriorated by a continued action in op- 
position to the laws of God, that he has seen fit to care for them, by 
placing them under the control of others ; or by placing them, in 
mercy, under the guidance of a less deteriorated race, whom, no 



NATURE AND ORIGIN OF SLAVERY. 113 

has, nor will it ever witness, a case where the moral, 
intellectual, and physical superior has been in slavery, 
as a fixed state, to an inferior race. The law giving 
superior rule and government to the moral, intellec- 
tual, and physical superior, is as unchangeable as the 
law of gravitation." — Fletoher'^s Studies on Slavery, 
p. 391. 

Of tlie remedial operation of slavery, we have a 
striking illustration in the case of the African race in 
our own country. In the history of nations, it would 
be difficult to find an instance in wdiich a people have 
made more rapid progress upward and onward than 
the African race has made under the operation of 
American slavery. That they have not yet as a peo- 
ple, attained a point at which they are capable of 
safe self-government, is, we believe, conceded by 
every one personally acquainted with them, and 
therefore capable of forming an intelligent opinion. 
That it may take generations yet, to accomplish the 
gracious purposes of God in inflicting slavery upon 
them, is very possible. The work which it has taken 



doubt, he holds responsible for the good he intends them. And may 
we be permitted to inquire of the Christian man, if this position pre- 
sents anything contrary to the general law of benevolence of the 
Deity — contrary to the welfare of man on earth, or his hopes of 
heaven.^' — Fletcher^ s Stiidies of Slaveri/, p. 504. 



114: THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

ages to do, it often takes ages to undo. But nothing 
is more certain than that God's plan has* operated 
well thus far 

National sin, persisted in from generation to gene- 
ration — then, national degradation, becoming deeper 
and darker as time rolls on — then, national slavery, 
at once a punishment for sin, and a gracious pro- 
vision for saving from utter extinction, and gradually 
restoring again to the position from which sin has 
dragged its victims down. Such is the order estab- 
lished by God, as set forth both in his word and in 
his providence ; and thus understood, there is a pro- 
found philosophy underlying the Scriptural method 
of dealing with slavery. 

§ 17. Cou7iter' arguments. 

To most ot the arguments from express Scripture 
advanced by anti-slavery writers, the simple state- 
ment of the Scriptural doctrine of slavery, is a -suffi- 
cient answer. Such, for example, as Dr. Barnes' 
argument from the passages — " For one is your mas- 
ter, even Christ, and all ye are 'bretJirenP — Matt. 
XXIII. 8. And— "God hath made of one Mood all 
nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the 
earth."— Acts, XYIII. 26. 

There is one passage, however, which may need a 



NATURE AND ORIGIN OF SLAVERY. 115 

passing notice, viz. : our Lord's words, " Whatsoever 
ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so 
to them ; for this is the law and the prophets." — Matt. 
YII. 2. Or, as the same truth was expressed, on an- 
other occasion — " And the second (commandment) is 
like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. 
On these two commadments hang all the law and the 
prophets."— Matt. XXII. 39, 40. On this, Dr. B. 
remarks : " This rule he (Christ) evidently designed 
should be incorporated into his religion as essential 
to the system, and it is manifest that nothing incon- 
sistent with the fair application of it can be in ac- 
cordance with the spirit of Christianity. Yet its 
bearing on slavery, is obvious. Its influence iir secur- 
ing the emancipation of all those now held in bond- 
age, if fairly applied, would be certain and inevitable. 
Freedom is sweet to man ; and it cannot be doubted 
that if a man were in all circumstances to act toward 
those under him, as he would desire to be treated if 
in their place, the bonds of servitude would soon be 
loosed." — Scrvpt. Views, pp. 248, '9. 

These words of Christ are given by him, expressly, 
as a summary of the second table of the law, delivered 
in full to Israel from the top of Sinai. Turning to 
this second table of the law, now, as written by God's 
own finger, we read, " Thou shalt not covet thy neigh- 
bor's wife, nor his man-servajit (male-slave), nor his 



116 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

maid-servant (female-slave), nor his ox, nor his ass, 
nor anything that is thy neighbor's." — Ex. XX. IT. 
Can it be that God has recognized — recognized by 
regulating it — a right, in this his statement in full of 
a law, which is directly at variance with the principle 
of that law ? 

Or, taking Dr. B.'s method of interpreting the 
words of our Lord, we ask. Can any father rightfully 
restrain the waywardness, or correct the disobedience 
of his child ? Does he believe that if he were the 
child, and the child were the father, he would like to 
be chastised? Or, can the civil magistrate punish 
the criminal? Does he believe that if he were the 
criminal, and the criminal were the magistrate, he 
would like to be hung ? All interpretation of general 
laws, such as that of Dr. B., is delusive. The conse- 
quences of sin, consequences established by God him- 
self, must come upon the sinner ; and if they come 
as chastening, they must come against the will of him 
who suffers under them, "for no chastening, for 
the present, seemeth to be joyous, but grievous;" 
and all this without any violation of the "law of 
love." 



CHAPTER YII. 

RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO SLAVERY. 

§ 18. Tlie Discijpline of the Church. 

" The Church is the kingdom of the Lord Jesus 
Christ. Its officers are his servants, bound to exe- 
cute his will. Its discipline is his law, which he as a 
king has ordained. The Church can enjoin what he 
commands, prohibit what he condemns, and enforce 
her testimonies by spiritual sanctions." Beyond the 
Bible, the code which Christ has given her, she can 
never rightfully go. The Bible, and that alone, must 
govern her discipline. 

Let us apply this principle — first in a case or two, 
about which, w^e presume, there would be no difi*er- 
ence of opinion, that we may see clearly its scope 
and import. 

Under the Roman law, in Paul's day, a father 
might kill his child, and yet be guiltless of murder 
(see § 9). Supposing now, that some father, a mem- 

117 



118 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

ber of the Christian Church, had taken away the life 
of his child. How ought the Church to deal with 
such a case? Undoubtedly, they should deal with 
the man as a murderer, and as such, " deliver him 
over to Satan.'' Did he put in the plea. The Roman 
law, the law of the land, gives me the right to take 
away the life of my child ; the reply would be, That 
plea might avail you before a Roman court, but in 
the Church, the kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ, 
the law of God is alone of authority ; and by that law 
you are a murderer, and under that law, as a mur- 
derer, we cast you out of the Church. 

Or, take a case such as might occur in some of our 
Northern States. The laws of certain States allow 
husband and wife to be divorced, and subsequently 
to marry again, in cases in which the law of God does 
not allow it. Supposing a case, in which a member 
of the Church, divorced lawfully according to the 
States' law, but unlawfully according to God's law, 
has married again, comes up for decision in a Church 
court. Will the plea that the second marriage was 
lawful according to law of the State shield the 
offender from the Church's censure? E'ot for a 
moment. The law of God, and not the law of this or 
that particular State, is the law in his Church, and 
must regulate all her discipline. 

The only cases of apparent exception — and the 



RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO SLAVERY. 119 

exception is apparent only — are those in which mat- 
ters left undetermined by God's law are prohibited 
or enjoined by the law of the State. In this case, 
under the general requirement of Christian men " to 
obey magistrates," (Titus, III. 1,) an offence against 
the law of the State may become, indirectly, an 
offence in the account of the Church, and the Church 
may be required to deal with it as such. 

Turning now to such cases as may arise in con- 
nection with slavery. The laws of our slave-holding 
States, at the present time, ignore the marriage rela- 
tion among slaves. Supposing a slave, a member of 
the Church, is guilty of adultery, as that crime is 
defined in God's law, and his case comes up for adju- 
dication before the Church. "Will the plea that the 
act was not adultery according to the State law be 
admitted in bar of judgment? Kot for a moment. 
The law of God, and not the law of the State, is the 
law in his Church. 

The law in our slave-holding States, at the present 
day, gives to the master the right to separate finally 
husband and wife among his slaves, and this at his 
pleasure and for his own profit.* But supposing that 

* As this matter is often referred to by anti-slavery writers, let me 
ask the attention of the reader to an extract from Fletcherh Studies 
on Slavery^ the most elaborate work on slavery which has been pub- 
lished at the South : — " So far as our experience goes, masters uni- 



120 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

a master, a member of tlie Cliurcli, exercises his 
power in violation of the law of God, will the plea 
that the State law gives him this authority be ad- 

versally manifest a desire to have their negroes marry, and to live 
with their wives and children, in conformity to Christian rules. And 
one reason, if no other, is very obvious. The master wishes to secure 
the peace and tranquillity of his household. Besides the interest of 
the master, his education on the subject of marriage must be allowed 
to have a strong influence on his mind to favor and foster in his slaves 
a connection which his own judgment teaches him must be important 
to their happiness and his own tranquillity, to say nothing of his duty 
as a Christian. Indeed, we never heard of a master who did not feel 
a strong desire, a pride, to see his slaves in good condition, contented, 
and happy ; and we venture to assert, that no man who entertained 
a proper regard for his own character, would consent to sell a family 
of slaves, separately, to different individuals, when the slaves them- 
selves manifested good conduct, and a habit, or desire to hve toge- 
gether in conformity to the rules of civilized life. That the owners 
of slaves have sometimes abused the power they possessed, and out- 
raged the feehngs of humanity in this behalf, is doubtless a fact. 
Nor do we wish to excuse such conduct by saying that proud and 
wealthy parents sometimes outrage the feelings of common sense and 
of their own children in a somewhat similar way. These are abuses 
that can be and should be corrected ; and we are happy to inform 
Dr. Wayland that we have lived to see many abuses corrected, and 
hope that many more corrections may follow in their train." — Pp. 
38-41. The author would add, that in a ministry of twenty years — 
all of it in Virginia — no case such as that he is supposing has come 
up for decision by the churches to which he has ministered, because 
no such case has occurred. He has never known a Christian master 
to violate God's law of marriage in the case of his slaves. 



RELATION OF THE CHUKCH TO SLAVEKY. 121 

mittecl as a valid defense in a Churcli court? Not 
for a moment. The law of God, and not the law of 
the State, must govern the discipline of the Church. 
Unscriptural State laws can no more determine the 
discipline of the Church, in the case of slaves than in 
the case of freemen.'^ 

'No conflict is likely to arise between a '' Free 
Church " (i. e. not a State Church) — and we believe 
that Christ intended his Church to be ^' free " every- 
where — and the State out of the administration of 
justice, in their several courts, under diflerent codes 
of law. The discipline of the Church extends to her 
own members only, and they become such by their 
own voluntary choice ; and she can enforce her deci- 
sions by spiritual sanctions alone. There are no 
slave-laws in our Southern States — in so far as we 
know — enjoining that which is contrary to the law 
of God. K such laws were enacted, the course of the 
Christian and the Christian Church is very plain ; 
they must obey God, and not man, as did the martyrs 
of other days. But where the State law simply per- 
mits that which is contrary to the law of God, the 

* The reader who wishes to know how such cases as those stated 
above are treated by the churches of Christ in the slave States, can 
consult a very able *' Report of the Charleston (S. C.) Baptist Associa- 
tion on the Marriages of Slaves," repubUshed in the February number 
of the PreshyterioM Magazine for 1857. 

•6 



122 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

Christian man can abstain, and the Church can 
require him to abstain, under the penalty of her 
spiritual sanctions, from the exercise of the permitted 
powers, without in any way coming in conflict with 
the State. 



§ 19. The Teaching of the Church. 

Beyond her ow^n pale the Church has no authority 
of discipline. On the world at large she can operate 
directly through the agency of her teaching alone. 

Her commission as a teacher is in the words, " Go 
ye therefore and teach all nations^ baptizing them in 
the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things what- 
soever I have coramam^ded you.'''' — Matt. XXYHI. 19, 
20. As the Bible is the only record of what Christ hath 
commanded, the Bible must govern her in all her 
teaching. " Apart from the Bible, she can never 
rightfully speak. ' To the law and to the testimonies,' 
and to them, alone she must always appeal, and when 
they are silent, it is her duty to put her liand upon 
her lips." 

What is the Church to teach on the subject of 
slavery ? Just what Christ hath commanded. Just 
what tlie Bible teaches — adding nothing thereto — 
taking nothing therefrom. And this she is to teach 



RELATION OF THE CHTROH TO SLAVERY. 123 

publicly, to all alike, be they " bond," or be tliey 
" free," and " wlietlier men will hear, or whether they 
will forbear." She has no esoteriG doctrine for the 
initiated, and exoteric for the people : no doctrine for 
the master which the slave may not hear ; and none 
for the slave which the master may not hear, as Dr. 
T3arnes seems to imagine."^ " In Christ Jesus there 
is neither bond nor free." 

Do the ministers of Christ, in the Southern states, 
teach from the pulpit all that the Bible teaches on the 
subject of slavery? Yes, we reply : as freely as they 
do the doctrine of God's word on any other subject. 
(See § 14, 5.) There are practical difficulties to be 
encountered, both in teaching and administering the 
discipline of tlie Church touching domestic relations, 
as every N'orthern pastor must have learned from his 
own experience in the case of husband and wife, 

* This passage teaches — " That the ministers of religion should not 
labor to produce a spirit of discontent among slaves, or excite them 
to rise upon their masters. It would undoubtedly forbid all such in- 
terference, and all agencies or embassies sent among slaves themselves 
to inflame their mind against their masters, in view of their wrongs. 
At the same time, nothing in this passage, or in any other part of the 
New Testament, forbids us to go to the maater himself^ and show 
him the evils of the system, and to enjoin upon him to let the op- 
pressed go free, or that the wrongs of the system may not be fully 
set before him." — Barnes^ Notes on 1 Tim. VI. 5. The italics are 
Dr. B.'s own. 



124: THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

l^arent and cliilcL But we believe that the Southern 
Church is as faithful to her duty, in so far as the re- 
lations established by slavery are concerned, as the 
Church, either jS'orth or South, is respecting the 
duties growing out of the marriage or parental rela- 
tion. It is not to Scriptural teaching from the pul- 
pit, that Southern Christians or men of the world ob- 
ject, but to the uuscriptual teaching of men "puffed 
up with pride though they know^ nothing, having a 
morbid fondness for so-called philosophical questions 
and logomachies." 



§ 20. Church and State, 

The Church of God is not — as seems to be taken 
for granted by many — an institution intended to do 
all the good w^hich needs to be done in the world, and 
wage war upon every form of human ill. There are 
other institutions, intended to do good and to alleviate 
the ills of life, to enable men to " live in all godliness 
and honesty," that are as truly institutions of God as 
the Church itself. 

Civil government is one of these. " The powers 
" that be are ordained of God ; whosoever therefore 
" resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God. 
" He (i. e. the civil ruler) is the minister of God to 



RELA.TION OF THE CHURCH TO SLAVERY. 125 

"thee for good."— Rom. XIII. l-t. "I exhort, 
" therefore, that first of all, supplications, prayers, 
" intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all 
" men ; for kings and for all that are in authority / 
" that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, in all 
" godliness and honesty. For this is good and accept- 
" able in the sight of God our Saviour." — 1 Tim. II. 
l-tt. " Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man 
'' for the Lord's sake ; whether it be to the hing^ as 
" supreme, or unto governors^ as unto them that are 
" se7it hy him for the punishment of evil-doers, and 
" for the praise of them that do well." — 1 Pet. 11. 
13, 14. 

According to the plain teaching of Scripture in 
such passages as those quoted above — and we might 
multiply the quotations did it seem necessary — 
the Civil government is as truly an institution of 
God as is the Church ; and a great deal of the good 
which needs to be done in this world, is, by God's 
appointment, to be done through its agency ; and a 
great many of the ills of life are to be alleviated in 
the same way. In his own proper sphere, the civil 
ruler is as truly " the minister of God to thee for 
good," as is the minister of the Church. Is the " evil- 
doer to be terrified ?" the civil ruler " beareth not the 
sword in vain." Is "a life in all godliness and 
honesty " to be secured to the Christian man ? the 



126 THE CHEISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

civil ruler is " sent of God," for the " punishment of 
evil-doers and the praise of them that do well." 

The Christian man is bound to regard these ap- 
pointments of God. Tlie Church may no more right- 
fully intrude itself into the province of the State, 
than the State may intrude itself into the province of 
the Church. The fact, if fact it be, that the State 
may not be accomplishing all the good it ought, that 
civil or political evils are suffered under its adminis- 
tration, that it needs reforming — does not authorize 
the Church to step in and supply these deficiencies, or 
reform these abuses, any more than a similar state of 
things in the Church would authorize the State to 
interfere. All human institutions — human, in that 
they are administered by man, though ordained of 
God — are imperfect in their operation. And this, 
not because the ordinance of God is imperfect, but 
because sin has introduced disorder into the working 
of all earthly things ; has put man's nature out of 
joint. The Church, the State, the Family — we dis- 
cover evils in the practical working of them all. 
And such, we believe, will be the case so long as 
man, but partially sanctified at best, is '' God's minis- 
ter " in their administration. 

"We freely grant, and sincerely rejoice in the 
truth, that the healthful operations of the Church in its 
own appropriate sphere, re-act upon all the interests 



RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO SLAVERY. 127 

of man, and contribute to tlie progress and prosperity 
of society. But we are far from admitting, either, 
that it is the purpose of God, that under this present 
dispensation of religion, all evil shall be banished 
from this sublunary state, and earth be converted into 
a paradise ; or, that the proper end of the Church is 
the direct promotion of univeral good." — Synod of 
South Carolina^ 1848. 

The conduct of the Apostles — and the same is true 
of that of Christ himself — was always in conformity 
with these principles so plainly laid down in the 
Word of God. They lived, and preached, and 
labored ; they planted the Church, and nurtured it, in 
' countries where the civil government was oppressive, 
and greatly needed reforming ; where the State failed 
in the accomplishment of much of the good which 
God designed the State to do ; where many of the 
ills of life which civil government is intended to cor- 
rect, were suffered to prevail unchecked ; where per- 
feon and property were insecure ; where the judges 
took bribes and the rulers oppressed the people ; and 
the Apostles suffered in their own persons in all these 
various ways. Yet never do we find these heaven- 
guided ministers of the Church, either individually 
or in their synods, intermeddling with the affairs of 
state. Never do we see them taking the lead in 
political agitation ; never did they, on the Sabbath, 



128 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

lay aside the Gospel that they might preach civil or 
legal reform. Having received a specific commission 
to " teach all things whatsoever Christ had com- 
manded," they abide by their commission ; never 
transgressing it, by adding any thing to, or taking 
anything from Christ's commandment. 

Would that the Church in succeeding ages, had 
followed their example. Alas ! she did not. With 
increasingnumbers, increasing wealth, and increasing 
power, the ordinance of Christ came to be disre- 
garded, the wisdom of man was substituted for the 
truth of God, and the Church was wedded to the 
State in unholy union. And then, as the conse- 
quence of such a step, growing corruption in doctrine 
and in manners mark her histery ; and a long, dark 
night of ignorance, and degradation, and sin, settles 
down upon Christendom. The State, cursed in her 
union with the Church ; and the Church yet more 
deeply cursed in her union with the State. 

These unholy bonds are now, in some measure, 
broken throughout Christendom. In our own coun- 
try, they have been more thoroughly broken than in 
any other ; and God forbid that they should ever be 
formed anew. And let us not say that because our 
government is a government of the people, and the 
Church of Christ in our land is divided into different 
denominations, there is no danger of Church and 



RELATION OF THE CHURCH TO SLAVERY. 129 

State ever uniting. If such a union is formed, it will, 
of necessity, be different in its character from any 
that has existed heretofore. And he who has care- 
fully watched the course of things during the summer 
last passed, may have some inkling of a form which 
it may take on. A state of things in which political 
questions shall be discussed in the pulpit and on the / 
Sabbath, and ecclesiastical councils, turning away 
from the matters which Christ has given them in 
charge, shall busy themselves with affairs of state ; and 
men's religious feelings shall be evoked as elements 
of political strife, and they made to feel that in promot- 
ing the interests of this or that party they are verily 
doing God service. Experience teaches us that there 
is no tyranny like that of a mob. The bloodiest page 
in the bloody history of France, is that which records 
the despotism of the people. And so, we believe, 
should God, in righteous judgment, suffer a union to 
be fprmed between a government of the people, and a 
Church such as ours, it will prove itself the most dis- ^ 
astrous union of Church and State the world has 
ever seen ; disastrous to civil liberty ; and yet more 
disastrous to the religion of Christ. 

God has assigned to the Church and the State 
each its separate province, and neither has ever 
intruded into the province of the other without suf- 
fering therefor. To the Church God has intrusted 

6^ 



130 THE CHRIS-HAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

all the interests of man which more immediately con- 
cern the life to come ; his Gospel, and this she is to 
preach to every creature ; and the supervision of the 
manners of his people, her members, and these she is 
to regulate by his law, and so train them for his hea- 
venly kingdom. To the State God has intrusted all 
the interests of man which more immediately concern 
this present life — all questions respecting capital and 
labor, civil rights and political franchises, the pro- 
tection of the weak, the forcible repression of crime, 
and the general administration of justice between 
man and man. Each, acting in its own sphere, indi- 
rectly reacts upon the other. A pure Church is 
a blessing to a State, and an incorrupt State is a 
blessing to the Church. But let neither the one nor 
other o'erstep the "metes and bounds" which God 
has prescribed. The transgression of God's law, 
whether by individuals or nations, is sin, and sin and 
sorrow came into our world hand-in-hand, and hand- 
in-hand they have walked " up and down in the 
earth" ever since. 



CONCLUSIOK 



GOD S WOKK IN GOD 3 WAT. 



Where God has appointed a vwrlc for liis Cliiircli, 
he has generally appointed the way also in which that 
work is to be done. And where this is the case, the 
Church is as much bound to respect the one appoint- 
ment as the other. Both the worJc of the Church and 
the way are often more distinclj set forth in the life 
and ministry of Christ and his Apostles than in any 
positive precept. But in whatever manner the will 
of God is made known, that will is law to his Church. 

In the case of a race of men in slavery, the worli, 
which God has appointed his Church — as we learn it, 
both from the example and the precepts of inspired 
men — is to labor to secure in them a Christian life 
ou earth and meetness for his heavenly kingdom. 
The African slave, in our Southern States, may be 
deeply degraded ; the debasing effects of generations 
of sin may, at first sight, seem to have almost oblite- 
rated his humanity, yet is he an immortal creature ; 

131 



132 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

one for whom God'the Son died ; one whom God the 
Spirit can re-fashion, so as to make him a worthy wor- 
shipper among God's people on earth, and a welcome 
worshipper among the ransomed in heaven ; one 
whom God the Father waiteth to receive as a return- 
ing prodigal to his heart and to his home. And the 
commission of the Church, " go ye into all the world 
and preach the Gospel to every creature^^^ sends her a 
messenger of glad tidings to him as truly as to men 
frir above him in the scale of civilization. On this 
point there can be no difference of opinion among 
God's people, Korth or South, w^ho intelligently take 
the word of God as their " only rule of faitli and 
obedience." This is the worh of God, assigned by 
him to his Church, in so far as the slave race among 
us is concerned.''^ 

In what ^cay is this work to be done ? We answer, 
By preaching the same Gospel of God's grace alike 
to the master and the slave ; and when there is credi- 
ble evidence given that this Gospel has been received 
in faith, to admit them, master and slave, into the 
same Church — the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ, in 
which " there is neither bond nor free " — and to seat 

* " The fact is, that the great duty of the South is not emancipa- 
tion, but improvement. The former is obligatory only as a means to 
an end, and therefore only under circumstances where it would pro* 
mote that end." — Ilodge'a Essaj/s and Revievjs, p. 507. 



133 



them at the same table of the Lord, that drinking of 
the same cup, and eating of the same loaf, they may- 
witness to the world their communion in the body 
and blood of the same Saviour. And having received 
them into the same Church, to teach them the duties 
belonging to their several " callings " out of the same 
Bible, and subject them to the discipline prescribed 
b}^ the same law, the law of Christ. And this, the 
teaching of the Church, is to be addressed not to her 
members only, but to the world at large ; and her 
discipline of her members is to be exercised not in 
secret, but before the world, that the light whicli God 
has given her may appear unto all men. This is just 
the way in which Christ and his Apostles dealt with 
slavery. The instructions they have given us in their 
life and in their writings prohibit any other. 

In this way must the Church labor to make "good 
masters and good slaves,'' just as she labors to inake 
" good husbands, good wives, good parents, good 
children, good rulers, good subjects. With the ulti- 
mate effect of this upon the civil and political condi- 
tion of the slave the Church has nothing directly to 
do. If the ultimate effect of it be the emancipation 
of the slave — we say — in God's name, " let it come." 
" If it be of God, we camioV^ — and we would not if 
we could — " overthrow it, lest haply we be found 
even to ti^ht as^ainst God." If the ultimate effect be 



134 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

the perpetuation of slavery divested of its incidental 
evils — a slavery in which the master shall be required, 
by the laws of man as well as that of God, " to give 
unto the slave that which is just and equal," and the 
slave to render to the master a cheerful obedience 
and hearty service — we say, let slavery continue. 
It may be, that such a slavery, regulating the rela- 
tions of capital and labor, though implying some 
deprivation of j^ersonal liberty, will prove a better 
defense of the poor against the opj^ression of the rich, 
than the too great freedom in which capital is j^laced 
in many of the free States of Europe at the present 
day. Something of this kind is what the masses of 
free laborers in France are clamorino: for under the 
name of " the right to labors ' Something of this 
kind would have protected the ejected tenantry of 
the Duke of Sutherland against the tyranny which 
drove them forth from the home of their childhood, 
and quenched the fire upon many a hearth-stone, and 
converted once cultivated fields into sheep-walks. 
It may be, that Christian slavery is God's solution of 
the problem about which the wisest statesmen of 
Europe confess themselves " at fault." " Bonds make 
free, be they but righteous bonds. Freedom enslaves, 
if it be an unrighteous freedom."* 

* For an able examination of this point the reader is referred to 



god's wokk in god's way. 135 

To this way of dealing witli slavery, thus clearly 
pointed out in God's word, does God in his provi- 
dence " shut us up," for years to come. None but 
the sciolist in political philoso23hy can regard the 
problem of emancipation — even granting that this 
were the aim which the Christian citizen should have 
immediately in view — as a problem of easy solution. 
And thoughtful Christian men at the North, it has 
seemed to us, often lose sight of the greatest difficul- 
ties in the case. It is comparatively an easy matter 
to devise a scheme of emancipation in which all the 
just rights and the well-being of the master shall be 
provided for. But how shall we, as God-fearing men, 
provide for the just rights and well-being of the 
emancipated slave ? To leave the partially civilized 
slave race, in a state of freedom, in contact with a 
much more highly civilized race, as all history testi- 
fies, is inevitable destruction to the former. Their 
writ of enfranchisement is their death-warrant. To 
remove one hundredth part of the annual increase of 
the slave race to Liberia, year by year, would soon 
quench for ever that light of Christian civilization 
which a wise philanthropy has kindled upon the dark 



Slavery and the Remedy ; or, Principles and Suggestions for a 
Memedial Code, by Samuel Nott. Crocker and Brewster, publishers, 
Boston. 



136 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

coast of Africa. How shall we provide for the well- 
being of the enfranchised slave? Here is the real 
difficulty in the problem of emancipation. 

We mean to express no opinion respecting the 
feasibility of the future emancipation of the slave 
race among us. As we stated in the outset, our pur- 
pose is to introduce no question on which the Bible 
does not give us specific instruction. And we have 
referred to the question of emancipation — a question 
\vhich it belongs to the State, and not the Church, to 
settle — simply that the reader may see how com- 
pletely God's word and God's providence are " at 
one," in so far as the present duty of the Church is 
concerned. Is slavery to continue? We want the 
best of Christian masters and the best of Christian 
slaves, that it may prove a blessing to both the one 
and the other. Is ultimate emancipation before us ? 
"We want the best of Christian masters to devise and 
carry out the scheme by which it shall be efiected, 
and the best of Christian slaves, that their emancipa- 
tion may be an enfranchisement indeed. And this is 
just what the Bible plan of dealing with slavery aims 
at. T]ie future may be hidden from view in " the 
clouds and darkness" with which God oft veils his 
purposes; but there is light — heaven's light — upon 
the presetit. And it is with the present alone we have 
immediately to do. 



137 



This is one way of dealing with slavery, and so 
firmly convinced are we that it is God'S way for his 
Church that we cannot abandon it. 

Another way ^xo^o^^^ is — confounding the distinc- 
tion between slavery itself and the incidental evils 
which attach to it in our country, and at the present 
day, under the guise of dealing with "American 
Slavery;" in the teaching of the Church to denounce 
slave-holding as a sin, as " evil, always evil, and only 
evil," {Barnes' Notes, 1 Cor. YIL 21) ; and in the 
discipline of the Church to treat it as an " offence,^'' 
and " detach the Church from it, as it is detached 
from piracy, intemperance, theft, licentiousness, and 
duelling," {Church and State^ p. 193), and so labor 
directly to put an end to slavery throughout the 
world.* 

* That the reader may see how far Dr. B. would go, we give his 
own words: — "A Church, located in the midst of slavery, though all 
its members may be wholly unconnected with slavery, yet owes an 
important duty to society and to God in reference to the system, and 
its mission will not be accomplished by securing merely the sanctifi- 
cation of its members, or even by drawing within its fold midtitudes of 
those who shall be saved. Its primary work as a Church may have 
reference to an existing evil within its own geographical limits. The 
burden which is laid upon it may not be primarily the conversion of 
the heathen, or the diffusion of Bibles and tracts abroad. The work 
which God requires it to do, and for which specifically it has been 
planted there, may be to diffuse a definite moral influence in respect 



138 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

To all this we object — 

First. — There is a radical fallacy involved in the 
use which is made of the expression, " American 
Slavery." 

By American Slavery, Dr. Barnes means — and the 
same is true of all anti-slavery writers whose works 
we have seen — the aggregate of, 1. Slavery itself; 
and, 2. Tlie incidental evils which attach to it in this 
country and at this day, considered as inseparable — 
an indivisible unit. This treatment of the sub- 
ject is — 

1. Unphilosophical, Nothing is more real than 
the distinction, as set forth in the writings of Paul. 
(See § 15.) The fact that Dr. B. can write about 
Jewish slavery, and Koman slavery, and American 
slavery, as different the one from the others, shows 
that there must be something common to them all, to 
which we give the common name. Slavery ; and 
something peculiar to each, which we designate by the 
adjuncts Jewish, Roman, American. Dr. B. admits 

to an existing evil institution." — Church and Slavery^ p. 21. To con- 
vert the Church of God into a kind of " omnibus," in which every- 
thing called a moral reform shall be free to ride on an equal footing 
with the Gospel, as Dr. B. does, (see Church and Slavery, pp. 159- 
164,) is bad enough; but thus actually to turn the Gospel out upon 
the pave, until a certain moral reform has been carried home, is at 
once the folly of fanaticism and the fanaticism of folly. 



139 



that Roman slavery, as encountered by the Apostles 
in their day, was far more cruel and oppressive than 
American slavery now is* — that is, that much of the 
incidental evil which once attached to slavery has 
disappeared. If much has already disappeared, why 
may not all that remains disappear in like manner? 
The change that has taken place, has been effected 
under the benign influence of Christianity. And just 
as certainly as we believe that Christianity is from 
God, and is destined to a final triumph in the world, 
just so certainly do we believe that slavery — if it is 
to continue to exist — must continue to be modified by 
it, until all its incidental evils disappear. 

2. It is unscTijptural. By this we mean, 1. It is 
an essentially diflerent way of approaching the sub- 
ject of slavery from that adopted by the Apostles. 
Paul never wrote a line respecting Jewish slavery — 

* " It is proper to concede that the state of things was such that 
they (the Apostles) must have encountered it (slavery), and that it 
then had all the features of cruelty, oppression, and wrong, which 
can ever exist to make it repellant to any of the feelings of humanity, 
or revolting to the principles of a Christian. It is fair that the advo- 
cates of the system should have all the advantage which can be de- 
rived from the fact that the Apostles found it in its most odious forms, 
and in such circumstances as to make it proper that they should 
regard and treat it as an evil, if Christianity regards it as such at all." 
— Scriptural Views of Slavery^ pp. 250, 251. Compare this with a 
quotation given a little further on. 



140 THE CHEI8TIAN DOCTRESTE OF SLAVERY. 

meaning thereby, slavery itself and the incidental 
evils wliicli attached to it in his day and among the 
Jews — or lloman slavery ; nor does he give the 
Churches any directions couched in any such lan- 
guage as this. He writes about slavery^ which he 
treats as neither a sin nor an offence ; and about cer- 
tain Qvils attaching to slavery as he encountered it, 
which he treats as sinful, and requires the Church, in 
her own proper sphere, to labor to correct. 2. It 
ignores the very ground upon which the whole 
method of dealing with slavery prescribed in the 
Word of God, is predicated. 

In his introduction to his "Scriptural Yiews of 
Slavery," Dr. Barnes justifies his dealing, as he does, 
with what he calls " American Slavery," upon the 
ground — 

1. That slavery, as it exists in the United States, is 
slavery divested of all the incidental evils of which 
it is reasonable to suppose Christianity will ever 
divest it ; and hence, that all which now belongs to 
it, ought to be considered as, for all practical purposes, 
essential to the system.* 



* "If any system of slavery is sanctioned by the Bible, it may be 
presumed that that which exists in the United States is. This is a 
Christian land — a land, to a degree elsewhere unknown, under the 
influence of the Christian religion. It could hardly be hoped that a 



141 



This is certainly "American glorification" — "with 
a witness." For ourselves, we love our country ; and 
we feel an honest, patriotic pride in her standing 
among the nations. But God forbid, that w^e should 
entertain the thought that her social institutions, 
either in law or in fact, shall never be brought more 
fully under the control of God's truth than they now 
are ; tliat the wife shall never be better protected 
against the wrong often inflicted by the profligate 
husband ; and the child against the cruelty of tho 
drunken father ; and all this, without destroying the 
essential character of the marital and parental rela- 
tions as set forth in the AYord of God ; that our heart 
and our home relations shall never be more thoroughly 
Christian than they now are. And so, too, with re- 
spect to slavery. Had we heard such sentiments as 
those just quoted from Dr. B., as part of a Fourth-of- 
July oration of some beardless Sophomore, we could 
have -comforted ourselves with the reflection — in- 
creasing years may give the young man wisdom. 
That we should read them from the pen of one who 
must have " gray hairs here and there upon him," we 
can account for only by calling to mind what Paul 

state of society could be found, in which slavery could be better de- 
veloped, or where its developments would more accord with the prin- 
ciples of the Bible, than in our own land.''— Scriptural Views^ p. 14. 



142 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

tells lis of the effects of feeding on " unwholesome 
words."— 1 Tim, YL 3. 

2. That what we have designated as God's way of 
dealing with slavery, is dealing with slavery in the 
abstract^ and not as 2,jpTactical matter."^ 

AYhat Dr. B.'s idea of dealing with an institution 
in the abstract is, we know not. We have always 
supposed that such dealing implied the abstraction — 
i. e., the taking away or neglecting for the time being 
— something, either essential or incidental, belonging 
to such institution. But, surely, we are not dealing 
with American slavery — slavery as it exists among 
us, in the abstract — in any such sense as this. 

We take slavery, and the whole of slavery, just as 
it exists among us, and, after Paul's example, we 
separate it into — 1. That w^hicli is essential^ i. e., that 

* It is a subject of not unfrequent complaint, that, in the exami- 
nation of this subject (slavery), the adversaries of the system endeavor 
to show that slavery a.s- it exists in our country, is contrary to the 
Bible, instead of confining themselves to the naked question, whether 
slavery in the abstract is right or -wrong. The very question — the 
only one that is of &nj practical importance to us — is, whether 
slavery as it exists in the United States is, or is not, in accordance 
with the principles and the spirit of Christianity. As an abstract 
matter, there might indeed be some interest attached to the inquiry 
whether slavery, as it existed in the Roman empire in the time of the 
Apostles, or in Europe in the Middle Ages, was in accordance with 
the spirit of the Christian religion. — Scriptural ViewSy pp. 10, 12. 



god's work in god's way. 143 

which must continue if slavery continues ; and, 2. 
That which is incidental^ i. e., that which may disap- 
pear and slavery yet remain. Having done this, we 
then, in discussion^ deal with lothj^arts. We prove 
from the Word of God, that the fir^st is liot in viola- 
tion of his law ; and show, just as clearly, that much 
of the second is in violation of that law. And in our 
practical dealing with it^ as a Churchy we deal with 
hoth parts. The Jlrst we treat as not sinful, and re- 
quire both the parties to conform to its obligations ; 
much of the second — and just so much of it as is in 
violation of God's law — we prohibit, with' all the 
authority given by Christ to his Church over her 
members, and in every proper way, we seek to re- 
move from the world at large. If this is not dealing 
with slavery in its entirety, we ask, What is ? If this 
is dealing with slavery in the abstract^ we ask, What 
have we abstracted ? 

We remarked that there was '^ a radical fallacy in- 
volved in the use which is made of the expression, 
American slavery ^^ as used by Dr. B. and other writers 
of the same school. The reader will now see just 
what was meant by that remark. 

The only meaning which can properly attach to the 
expression American slavery, is that of slavery as it 
exists in these United States of America. In this 
sense of the expression, we are dealing with American 



144: THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

slavery, just as truly, and just as fully, and with far 
more of jpfactical wisdom, we think, than Dr. B. is. 
The real difference between us is, that we distinguish 
between that which is essential and that which is in- 
cidental, as Paul did, and we deal with each as it 
deserves, as Paul did. Whilst Dr. B., neglecting this 
distinction, and thus, practically, treating all as essen- 
tial, deals with it as an indivisible unit ; and he does 
this under the guise of dealing with " American sla- 
very," foisting upon that phrase,* in addition to its 
proper meaning, the idea of the indivisible unity of 
the mass. To take such a course as this, when the 
issues in question are such as they are, is nothing 
more nor less than "a begging of the question." 

Second. — We object to the course proposed by Dr. 
B. and others, for deaUng with slavery, because it re- 
quires the Church to obtrude herself into the province 
of the State, and this, in direct violation of the ordi- 
nance of God. A course which has never been taken 
in times past, without disastrous consequences to the 
Church which did the wrong, as well as to the State 
which permitted tbe wrong to be done. Many a 
thing which it is right and proper, and even the duty 
of the Christian citizen, in this our free country, to 
do, the Clmrch, as such, has no right to intermeddle 
v/ith. It is, doubtless, the duty of the Christian citi- 
zen, for example, to use all proper means to inform 



145 



himself respecting the qualifications of candidates for 
ofiDce, and having thus informed himself, to vote for 
the one whom he believes will best discharge the 
duties of the office. But will any Christian man, 
hence contend that it is right for the preacher, in the 
pulpit and on the Sabbath, to discuss the claims of 
rival candidates, and the Church, in her councils to 
direct her members how to vote ? The Church and 
State has each its own appropriate sphere of opera- 
tion assigned it of God, and neither can innocently 
intrude herself into the province of the other. 

Thikd. — It leads to tampering with God's truth, 
and " wresting the Scripture," as Dr. B. has done in 
his Notes, by the application to them of principles 
and methods of interpretation, which destroy all cer- 
tainty in human language. In order to make the 
Bible declare that slave-holding is a sin, when it 
plainly teaches j ust the contrary ;'^ and to teach in 

* "As it appears to us too clear to admit of either denial or doubt, 
that the Scriptures do sanction slave-holding ; that under the old dis- 
pensation it was expressly permitted by divine command, and under 
the New Testament is nowhere forbidden or denounced, but on the 
contrary, acknowledged to be consistent with the Christian character 
and profession, (that is, consistent with justice, mercy, holiness, love 
to God, and love to man;) to declare it to be a heinous crime is a 
direct impeachment of the Word of God." "When Southern Chris- 
tians are told that they are guilty of a heinous crime, worse than 

7 



146 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

the Church doctrines which we are forbidden to 
teach under the most solemn sanctions. (See § 12.) 
This course has led not a few, once fair and promis- 
ing members of the Church, and even ministers, into 
open "blasphemy;" and Paul teaches us, that such 
is its natural tendency, (1 Tim. YI. 4.) We have no 
desire to walk in their way, or to meet their doom. 

Fourth. — It requires us to quit a method of dealing 
with slavery which has worked well in time past — all 
of real advantage to the slave that has ever been done 
by the Church has been done in this way — and to 
substitute for it a method which, to say the least of 
it, is a mere experiment, and an experiment which 
has wrought nothing but harm to the slave^ thus far 

piracy, robbery, or murder, because tliey hold slaves, when they 
know that Christ and his Apostles never denounced slave-holding as 
a crime, never called upon men to renounce it as a condition of admis- 
sion into the Church, they are shocked and offended without being 
convinced. They are sure that their accusers cannot be wiser or bet- 
ter than their Divine Master, and their consciences are untouched by 
denunciations which they know if well founded, must affect not them 
only, but the authors of the religion of the Bible." — Hodge's Essays 
and Eevicivs, pp. 503, 484. 

* In illustration of this remark, we quote from Fletcher — " Thirty 
years ago, we occasionally had schools for negro children ; nor was it 
uncommon for masters to send their favorite young slaves to these 
schools ; nor did such acts excite attention or alarm, and, at the same 
time, any missionary had free access to that class of our population. 



147 



— and we say this, after watching its operation during 
a ministry of twenty years, all of it, in God's provi- 
dence, spent in a slave-holding state. 

For all these reasons, we can never adopt this 
second way proposed. God's work m God's way, 
the Church at the South, in common with some por- 
tions of the Church at the IS^orth also,* have inscribed 
upon their banner ; and under that banner do we 
mean to fight the " Lord's battles," grace assisting us, ' 
until he who bid us gird on our armor shall give us 
leave to put it off. Churches of God may cut us off 
from their communion. They cannot break our union 
with Christ, " the Head." Ministers of the Gospel, 

But when we found, with astonishment, that our country was flooded 
with abolition prints, deeply laden with the most abusive falsehoods, 
with the obvious design to excite rebeUion among the slaves, and to 
spread assassination and bloodshed through the land ; when we found 
these transient missionaries, mentally too insignificant to foresee the 
result of their conduct, or wholly careless of the consequences, 
preaching the same doctrines — these little schools, and the mouths of 
these missionaries, were closed. And great was the cry. Dr. Way- 
land knows whereabout lies the wickedness of these our acts! Let 
him and his coadjutors well understand that these results, whether for 
the benefit or injury of the slave, have been brought about by the 
work of their hand." — Studies on Slavery^ p. 41. 

"We could add much of similar character, from our own obser- 
vation. 

* See the paper adopted by the General Assembly of the Presby- 
lerian Church, 0. S., in 1845. {Assemhly's Digest^ pp. 811-813.) 



14:8 THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF SLAVERY. 

from whom we have a right to expect better things, 
may revile us — wc " fear God rather than man." " A 
conscience void of offence before God," is above all 
price. With this whole subject of slavery, we mean 
to deal just as Christ and his Apostles dealt — to 
preach what they preached — to labor as they labored 
— to govern the Church of God as they governed 
it — in Christian fellowship and brotherhood with 
God's people at the JN'orth, and in other lands, if we 
MAY : — in faithfulness to Christ, though in opposition 
to all the world, if loe must. 



THE END 



3li.77-l 



^ 



